Last weekend, the long-anticipated live action Dora the Explorer movie made its debut in theaters worldwide. I say long-anticipated because every day we get between five and 20 emails from listeners DEMANDING this movie. Just kidding, literally no one in the world who is not a creeper has been demanding this movie. Even so, this movie exists and hey, it did well with critics, its representation matters, and it’s genuinely very funny! I didn’t see that coming so kudos to everyone involved. Dora did, however, make me consider what other Nickelodeon cartoons could receive the live-action treatment. Here are my ideas, free of charge for the good people at Nickelodeon.

RugratsThis movie is a sequel to the original series and finds the Rugrats crew in their early-to-mid thirties. They’re all just living life with their own set of kids who get into their own brand of shenanigans. We could go the Look Who’s Talking route and have established actors do voices for the babies, but I think instead we just drop in on the old gang and see where life has taken them. One of them is very successful, one of them (probably Chuckie, let’s be honest) lives in another Rugrats’ basement, one of them hasn’t kept up with the times and says a lot of wacky stuff that’s borderline offensive in 2019, etc.

Kung Fu Panda: Legends of AwesomenessThis one is a trick to get kids to watch nature stuff. We just take footage from Planet Earth, its spinoffs and contemporaries, anything featuring a panda bear, and slap Adam West-era Batman logos and effects all over the place literally anytime the panda moves. Even the title card explodes onto the screen with a Jack Black sound-alike yelling, “KUNG FU PANDA!!! LEGENDS OF AWESOMENESS!!!” The movie is 65 minutes long, tops, and at the end, we show a trailer for Planet Earth (“now available on Netflix”) and hope all the kids fall for our scam.

Paw PatrolMy interpretation of Paw Patrol is EXTREMELY dark. Like, imagine Zack Snyder reading the script and squirming a little. The Paw Patrol pups have divided themselves into warring clans and the action makes Game of Thrones feel timid. (I admit all of this is just a ploy to scar my own child into not watching Paw Patrol anymore.)

Rusty RivetsThis pitch is for a TV series rather than a movie. Rusty Rivets is a relatively new show you may not know about if you don’t have young kids in the target demo. It features a pair of best friends who use their imagination and a DIY attitude to create robots, creatures, etc. My show crosses the Rivets gang over with the Scott Brothers from HGTV’s Property Brothers (and 500 other properties these guys are involved in) and finds the four of them building elaborate treehouses and the like with the help of some of Rusty’s mechanical creations. Also, Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition shows up from time to time and his wacky ideas really throw a monkey wrench in the planning.

Spongebob SquarepantsI am convinced that 90 percent of Spongebob’s audience is not comprised of children at all but of stoners instead. This movie leans into that hunch with a completely bonkers set and costume design that feels like a bad acid trip playing out on the BBC in 1976. It’s kitschy, campy, and probably horrifying but a certain crowd LOVES it and it becomes a massive cult hit, guaranteed.

I wasn’t big into superheroes growing up. I knew the standards (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.) and had some toys but, as far as pop culture stuff goes, I was far more interested in Star Wars and then Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That changed significantly when I was nine with the introduction of ­X-Men: The Animated Series into the FOX Saturday morning cartoon lineup. I was immediately hooked on the series, on the universe, and on the characters. I cared about the X-Men and the situations they found themselves in thrilled me. It was the first show I remember that took its young audience seriously and treated us like the semi-responsible teenagers we would soon become. As a result, I read some of the X-Men comics, fell even more in love with the world, and later, I followed the production of the first movie with an intensity only rivaled by my anticipation for Phantom Menace (*sad Price is Right horn*). This is my favorite superhero movie franchise and no matter how good or bad the Marvel and DC movies are, I’m always more excited about a good X-Men movie and more disappointed by a bad X-Men movie than anything coming from the other franchises. With Dark Phoenix opening to miserable reviews this weekend and the Disney merger now a done deal, this chapter of the X-Men is closing and thus, I felt it time to look back on the franchise and rank the movies that make up this universe.

NOTE: I went back and forth on whether the Deadpool movies and the various Wolverine movies should be included in this discussion. Ultimately, I think they belong though there’s a case to be made that these movies are X-Men-adjacent not X-Men-proper.

11. Last Stand (2005)There are some good elements in Last Stand but the vast majority of them come down to the success of the previous films in the trilogy. “Do you like X-Men movies? Well this sure is an X-Men movie!” seems to be the tagline. Losing Bryan Singer’s direction (he left to make Superman Returns) is one thing; replacing him with Brett Ratner’s big bag of nothing was quite another. Ratner took the helm of a franchise on the brink of superhero domination and rammed it into the ground on takeoff. Lazy writing, an absurdly overstuffed story, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes the X-Men great are just a few highlights of the mess that is Last Stand.

10. Apocalypse (2016)Apocalypse is probably better than at least the next film on this list but it’s also far more disappointing. Coming off of First Class and Days of Future Past, it seemed like the X-Men series had finally found its groove. With Singer in the director’s chair (making this the first X-Men movie since X2 that was directed by the same director of the previous film) and a cast that included some rising young stars and Oscar Isaac, Apocalypse felt like a sure thing…until it very much was not a sure thing. The story is muddled, the acting is, frankly, quite bad, and the promise of the cast is squandered. As a huge X-Men fan, this is probably one of the five or ten most disappointing movies of my life.

9. Origins: Wolverine (2009)It is impossible to defend Origins as an actual good movie. It is very much not a good movie. Moreover, it failed the relaunch the X-Men brand post-Last Stand and even led to the scrapping of a series of planned Origins spin-offs. I acknowledge all of this while also acknowledging that, even still, it’s a very watchable movie for me. Maybe it’s a guilty pleasure, maybe it just scratched the X-Men itch and brought to life one of the more interesting storylines from the comics/animated series, or maybe it’s because Gambit appears in the form of my beloved Taylor Kitsch/Tim Riggins. Whatever the case may be, each time I watch Origins (and I have watched it far more times than I’d care to admit), I think, “Gosh that was bad but yeah, I’m definitely going to watch it again sometime.”

8. The Wolverine (2013)This second attempt at a Wolverine spinoff is, for me, the exact opposite of Origins: It’s a competent, well-made film that I never even think about watching. I was underwhelmed in my first viewing and I’ve never gotten past that feeling in either of my subsequent viewings. Honestly, I sometimes forget it exists, especially in a post-Logan world. When I do remember it exists, I’m hard-pressed to remember much about it, good or bad, other than perhaps the action sequence on the train. Wolverine is FINE but it doesn’t have Tim Riggins so how fine is it really?

7. X-Men (2000)The OG doesn’t get nearly enough credit for laying the groundwork for the myriad superhero movies that have come since 2000. I was supremely pumped for this movie when it came out and it never occurred to me then that it could possibly be anything less than a smash hit but in retrospect, this was a very risky endeavor. There are definitely some bumps within X-Men that likely would’ve been ironed out if it weren’t essentially the first movie of its kind and much of the plot is fairly nonsensical on close inspection. But the fact that it still holds up as a quality superhero flick is a testament to the entire production and it started the franchise out on a very high note.

6. First Class (2011)Big props are owed to Matthew Vaughn for reinvigorating a franchise that had lost almost all of its cultural relevance in the years since X2. There are gripes to be had with First Class (Montage! Montage! Montage!) but the new cast is superb across the board and Vaughn clearly understood the tone and depth of this universe. It’s a fun movie but it still has teeth and it handles its material with an appropriate level of seriousness. Of the new cast and their character interpretations, Michael Fassbender is particularly brilliant.

5. Deadpool (2016)Deadpool had been rumored and taken through various production periods so often that by the time it finally debuted, anyone who had followed the project couldn’t help but feel nervous. A friend of mine, a long-time comic reader, literally whispered, “Please be good, please be good” as the lights in our theater dimmed and our screening began. It’s almost as if fans of these comics and this character willed it into a quality movie. It doesn’t hurt that Ryan Reynolds made the PERFECT Wade Wilson and the PERFECT Deadpool, but Tim Miller and FOX deserve a ton of credit for understanding their character and allowing him to be his dirty and unsanitary yet charismatic and charming self on screen.

4. Deadpool 2 (2018)I know lots of people who found Deadpool 2 to be disappointing compared to the first one. For me, however, I thought it was a great story for highlighting the best elements of the character, the X-Force sequence was magnificent (although hilariously short lived), and as I’ve always said, there is no movie franchise that is not made better by the addition of Josh Brolin. This movie also removed any fear I had about its predecessor being a one-off, lightning in a bottle situation. Now my only question is how effectively the Merc with the Mouth can be incorporated into the X-Men Universe-proper.

3. Days of Future Past (2014)DoFP isn’t *quite* to the level of, “I think this movie is great and I won’t be hearing any arguments to the contrary” but it’s close. Time travel is always a dicey proposition and the confusing nature of the narrative is both the source of frustration for this movie’s detractors and ultimately the downfall of the franchise as a whole as it moved into Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. But this was everything I wanted in an X-Men movie, bringing together both parts of the cast and telling a magnificent story with a flair that feels more like the animated series than any other entry from this franchise. I’ve watched this movie perhaps more times than all of the other X-Men movies combined, and I always find it compelling.

2. X2: United (2003)As mentioned previously, I think the first X-Men is a great achievement in comic book filmmaking. But I thought it was a GREAT movie, maybe even as good as an X-Men movie could possibly be, until X2 dropped in 2003. Then it was like, “Oh. So, THAT’S what a great X-Men movie looks like.” The maturation of the actors in their roles, the introduction of a few new characters, the improvements in shot selection, set pieces, and the like all combine to make X2 not just a great X-Men movie but one of the great, (and now, I think, overlooked) comic book movies ever made.

1. Logan (2017)The best of the X-Men movies is oddly the least enjoyable, at least for me. I’ve gotten beaten down by the rise of gritty superhero movies, though not because of their edge so much as the often-uninspiring stories they tell. The decision to make this an R-rated feature and to let Wolverine go “Full Wolverine” was an important one, to be sure, but it’s not THE reason it’s so good. Logan sets itself apart from most of its post-Dark Knight contemporaries by telling a strong, compelling story that pairs beautifully with its broken, exhausted hero. Jackman is incredible in this role and he gives the movie all he has left to give but it is his pairings with both Stewart’s addled Professor X and Dafne Keen’s Laura that bolster Logan’s overall quality. Through these relationships, the movie offers redemption to Logan, a character who has literally a century of sins for which to atone, and it does so with equal measures of grace and heartbreaking brutality.

When my editor gave me the assignment of interviewing John Wick, I considered handing in my resignation on the spot. Setting aside the fact that the man is, let’s face it, terrifying, I questioned whether New York Magazine should be in the business of profiling a man who made a career out of contract killing then made a name for himself out of killing even more people in very public, graphic ways. “He’s basically a war criminal,” I protested. “Nah,” my editor replied. “I think technically to be a war criminal you have to commit horrible crimes in an actual war not just in the streets of New York. He’s more like a vigilante, I think.” I remained hesitant but my seven roommates reminded me that if I didn’t pay my share of the rent this month, they would murder me and pawn my belongings and so, I took the assignment.

We meet at a small, unassuming coffee shop (his choice) in a neighborhood that is somewhere between decrepit and gentrification. I was surprised by the setting, having had myriad interview experiences wherein the subject chose a posh eatery, a hip bar, or, worst of all, a chain restaurant in Time’s Square under the guise of showing off his “Everymanness.” This place (unnamed, again at Mr. Wick’s request) was decidedly devoid of ambiance or atmosphere and I got the distinct impression that Mr. Wick actually patronized the establishment regularly despite its grimy counters and dim lighting.

“I just want the opportunity to set the record straight,” Mr. Wick had said in our brief but pleasant phone conversation to set up the interview. “I know I’ve done some bad things, but those things aren’t who I am you know? I just want people to see that.”

Mr. Wick arrives five minutes after I do, clad in the expected black garments but topped off with a jaunty scarf and a fedora. He orders at the counter on the way to our table and politely extends his hand as I stand. My hand is shaking as I grasp his and he smiles, disarmingly, and I find myself grinning sheepishly, not quite ashamed of the fear that grips my soul in the presence of a cold killer but certainly embarrassed by it, nonetheless. He gestures to the table, we sit, and just as I begin our conversation, my pen runs out of ink.

I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Wick. My pen seems to be faulty. Let me see if I have another in my bag. Oh, please, use mine. [He produces a beautiful, rather expensive-looking fountain pen from his jacket pocket.] A gift from Helen, my wife, God rest her soul, on our anniversary many years ago.

He slides the pen across the table with a smile.

You..you sure you don’t mind? I’m old school, I like to take notes even when I’m recording but I don’t want to inconvenience you.No, no, of course I don’t mind, please.

Okay. Well, thank you. First off, Mr. Wick, I-John. Please. Call me John. Mr. Wick was my father and all that. [Whispering] Actually, between you and me, I have no idea who my father was. I picked the name John Wick on a lark when I was a boy and it just stuck.

He chuckles and gives me a wink as he removes his scarf and sets it on the table.

Oh. I…Yes, John. Of course. Well, John, first off, I feel I must tell you I was hesitant to take this assignment. Of course, I completely understand. My reputation precedes me and I’m sure you’ve seen some of the footage of my less savory endeavors.

I have. You are…very good at killing people.[Chuckling in the least menacing way possible] Sure, I am, but, as I said on the phone, that’s not who I am. That was my job for a while and then it was my mission, perhaps even my passion, but no one likes to be pigeonholed by their job or even their hobbies. I also like sports, I read, I dabble in poetry, I’m learning to cook pasta… There’s more to John Wick than just killing criminals.

You…you like sports? Oh yeah, big time! Big sports guy here!

What sports?I used to watch a lot of football, but it’s lost some of its luster for me over the years. The concussions and stuff. Baseball was always too boring for me as a kid, but I’ve come to appreciate it as I’ve gotten older. I’ve always been a Knicks fan, of course, though that hasn’t been much fun for, oh, let’s see, the last two decades! [Laughs] Sell the team already, Dolan, for Pete’s sake. More than anything, though, I love English soccer. I wake up early every Saturday and Sunday morning and watch every match. It’s truly a beautiful sport.

I confess, Mr. W- John, you’re not who I expected you to be. Your interest in sports, your demeanor, even your hat.You like it? I’m not totally sold on the style of it yet. I’ve never been much of a fashionista. That was Helen’s department. She always picked out the most wonderful black attire for me. I’m still kind of trying to figure out how to do simple things like buying clothes for myself. She handled all of that.

Our drinks arrive, Mr. Wick thanks the server, and offers his cup to mine in a silent “Cheers.”

Anyway, the hat and the scarf are more camouflage than anything else.

How do you mean?Well, I’m six-foot-five and I weigh 110 pounds, I dress in all black all the time, and I’ve killed hundreds of people at this point. It’s best to keep a low profile when I’m out and about. Hence, the ensemble.

I was curious about that. Your face has been plastered across every major and minor news outlet all over the world, your crimes are legendary and, again, VERY public, and yet you’re out and about, as you say, instead of locked away in some remote prison. How does that work?Well, you know, at the end of the day, all of the people I killed were hardened criminals who, frankly, deserved to die. The government could try to pin some of my pre-retirement crimes on me, but they wouldn’t hold up and they know it, I’m very good at killing people, as you say. And, after all, these monsters did kill my dog. My sweet, loving, kind puppy, a gift from my dead wife. Is there any crime worse than killing a dog? Probably not, I’d say. You add all those things together and, honestly, the authorities just leave me alone. I’m much more concerned about the network of assassins and criminals who are constantly on my tail.

Let’s talk about that if you don’t mind. Rumor has it that there is a huge network of assassins who operate worldwide and who live by a shared code of conduct. That can’t possibly be real, right?Oh, it’s very real and it’s widespread. You have no idea how many people you interact with in your everyday life who are connected to the network in one way or another. Especially in New York. Just yesterday my barber, a man I’ve known for a decade, tried to slice my throat while I was in his chair. I can’t even say I feel betrayed, I get it, with the rent like it is, who doesn’t need a side hustle?

Could you go into more details about the network itself and the governing body, something called The Table?I could but, frankly, you don’t want me to do that. It would only draw attention to you and that’s not something you want, trust me. Someday I’ll write a memoir but currently I’m far more interested in bringing down The Table. That and, of course, working on my Soundcloud.

Your what now?My Soundcloud.

You have a Soundcloud?Oh, yes. I’m surprised you don’t know that! That sounds arrogant, wow. Excuse me. I just mean, I feel like people talk to me about my Soundcloud way more than my murdering.

Is it music? Spoken word? A podcast?I dabble in various mediums, but the main focus is yacht rap. Helen, my dear, sainted wife, was really into the sort-of softcore hip hop and she got me hooked on it. I’d never listened to music before Helen, can you believe that? Classical Russian symphonies and the like but nothing contemporary. She really opened my eyes to a wide world of good and as a way to cope with her death, I started making some mix tapes in my basement. It turns out I’m actually pretty good at it and I’ve gained quite a following.

Do you ever play live?I’ve had a few small gigs here and there. Frat parties, corporate events, and the like. I’d like to do a full tour but it’s tough to squeeze it in between all the murders, especially with so many people on my tail. I was supposed to play Fyre Festival, though.

Wait you were supposed to be at Fyre Fe-I was so shocked by this information that I distractedly pressed so hard into my notepad that I snapped the head off the borrowed fountain pen.

I…oh my I…I’m so sorry, John.You…you broke my pen. The pen my beautiful, kind, loving, sainted wife, Helen, the woman who brought me from the brink of death, who taught me how to love and to see colors in the world, gave me on our second wedding anniversary. You. Broke. My. Pen. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With Avengers: Endgame opening this weekend, I felt it only right to take a look back at where we have come over the course of the last 11 years and 21 movies. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is historic in a number of ways, unlike anything that came before, and laying the foundation (for better or for worse) of what is likely to come in the future. You may suffer from superhero fatigue, and you are right to find yourself in such a state, but what Disney and Marvel have done with these films is undeniable and immeasurable feat. I did a ranking of the Marvel movies back in 2017 and in 2015 but for such a momentous occasion as Endgame, I thought we should bring in a few more voices than just my own. We started off with the rankings of Megan Spell from the On the Download podcast. Yesterday, we featured Ariel Rada from the Geek101 podcast. And I’ll conclude the series tomorrow with my updated rankings. Thanks for reading! -Brian

NOTE: I put the movies in tiers in part because I have the NFL Draft on in the background and it feels right and in part because, for me, so many of these movies are very close in overall quality. Consider each tier to be a handful of movies that are, by the letter grade system, all about the same grade in my book.

TIER VII21. Thor: The Dark World Still the only MCU property that I consider to be actually bad. Lots of these movies have flaws but Dark World is an entire movie of flaws. It took the shine off of both Hemsworth and the titular character and it is, frankly, completely pointless.

TIER VI20. The Incredible HulkI think both Ed Norton and Tim Roth give strong performances here and the movie itself is far from a lost cause. It feels disconnected, however, from the rest of the MCU and it just lacks most of the craftsmanship you come to expect from these movies.

19. Iron Man 2IM2 is incredibly watchable and mostly competent. That’s…about it? Perhaps its greatest sin is having Sam Rockwell at its disposal and making him a beating. Still, there’s plenty of fun Tony Stark-iness and it’s fine overall.

18. Ant-ManI really, really like elements of Ant-Man, starting with the casting of the immortal Paul Rudd, and the movie has some great moments. But there’s a real struggle to translate (and, perhaps, dumb down) Edgar Wright’s script and as a result, I always walk away from this one feeling like it could amount to so much more. (Turns out they just needed another go round to get it right. See below.)

TIER V17. Doctor StrangeStrange has two big factors in its favor. One, the visuals are stunning. The fight scenes are relatively bland, but the look of the movie is outstanding. Two, it’s got a great cast. Cumberbatch, my beloved Rachel McAdams, Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, etc. are all excellent actors slumming it for a silly superhero movie. I love that. The plot, though, is very lackluster and I think it feels like a 2010 movie, not a 2016 movie. For me, it’s one of the least rewatchable MCU movies.

16. ThorI have a soft spot for Thor because it launched Chris Hemsworth and for that, we all owe the movie a great debt. I also think Kenneth Branagh did yeoman’s work in making this movie work AT ALL even if its actual returns are mostly above average. The settings and themes should’ve made this movie inaccessible but instead it ticks along quite well for the most part. A miserable usage of Natalie Portman, however. At least this was rectified in Dark World oh wait it super was not.

15. Captain America: The First AvengerThis is a strong, capable origin story. No more and no less. The stroke of genius comes in the final scene when Steve Rogers is brought out of the ice into the present day rather than succumbing to the temptation of having Cap spend two or three movies in the 40’s before jumping him to the future. You get just enough of Cap’s righteousness, his war-era moral fortitude, and then drop him into the modern age where his virtues are dorky but refreshing instead of obnoxious.

14. Captain MarvelThere’s a lot to like here: Brie Larson is excellent in her role, and of course I love the 90’s vibe. It’s a fun movie but one that feels a bit insubstantial in its actual content compared to the best of the MCU. Like Doctor Strange, there’s a bit of origin story fatigue in play here as well.

13. Avengers: Age of UltronThere are some real highs within Ultron that I greatly appreciate. That said, you can also see the studio interference on this one more so than anywhere else in the MCU. But it does feel like Whedon lost the plot a few times and Spader’s Ultron never quite reaches the heights that we expected and the movie demands.

TIER IV12. Iron Man 3This is, somewhat shockingly, the most divisive movie within the MCU. Its fans will argue its virtues vehemently and its detractors will go so far as to compare it to the worst of the worst superhero movies. I come down much closer to the former rather than the latter. In fact, I LOVE two thirds of this movie and I think Shane Black brought out the absolute best in both Tony Stark and Iron Man. The issue for me is the last 30 minutes. The movie squanders a great twist on the Mandarin character and then drowns us in a sea of Iron Man suits (ALL OF THE IRON MAN SUITS!!!) and by the end you’re just like, “Enough. Please. Please stop.”

11. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2My expectations for Volume 2 were very high. Too high, it turned out. Separating the Guardians from one another had mixed results and I think James Gunn rested on his laurels a bit too much when it came to copy-pasting the formula. But still, what a fun movie! And, as I’ve said many times, no movie or franchise has ever been made worse by the addition of Kurt Russell.

10. Ant-Man and the WaspThis movie got everything right that the first movie missed on but still maintained the tone that Edgar Wright’s original script was going for. It just feels more comfortable overall and thus, it flows much better than Ant-man does for me. The addition of Evangeline Lilly’s Wasp as a character who is equal to or greater than the established hero is AWESOME and it strengthens this franchise moving forward exponentially.

TIER III9. Captain America: Civil WarCaptain America is the least interesting of the core Avengers to me and thus, you have to stick him into interesting storylines to make his movies work. Mission accomplished here in what is basically Avengers 2.5. It is remarkable that the Russos were able to pit our heroes against each other without making any of them unlikable (except Vision who, I think we can all agree, can kick rocks). My issue with Civil War remains the pacing (there are, like, 450 scene changes in the first 30 minutes) and the overstuffed nature of the plot. I get it, I understand why this was necessary, but still, it’s a lot to take in and it doesn’t always flow seamlessly.

8. The AvengersI think this remains the greatest achievement in comic book movie history. The team-up thing has almost become blasé at this point and I’m not sure younger generations, like my son, who were born into a movie world dominated by cinematic universes can quite understand what a massive undertaking this movie was for Joss Whedon and how risky the entire phase one was for Disney/Marvel. We’re now seven years and 157 Marvel movies out from Avengers and still, it looks good, the characters mesh well, the stakes feel significant, and the movie works really, really well. It’s almost impossible that this thing worked, and still works, as well as it did.

TIER II (Stands alone for the time being.)7. Avengers: Infinity WarI’ve had Infinity War both higher and lower on my list because, in actuality, it’s an incomplete. Until I see Endgame later today, I don’t think I can properly evaluate and understand the implications of Infinity War. Regardless, this movie has a grand story, the fight sequences bang, and, against impossible odds, they brought the long-awaited reveal on Thanos home in a big, spectacular way.

TIER I (Truly, these could go in almost any order and I’ve rearranged them several times.)6. Iron ManThe OG of the MCU, much like Avengers, deserves so much credit for setting the stage and building the foundation not just for this universe but for the modern blockbuster in general (for better or for worse). It’s an outstanding example of how to do a true origin story, how to stoke interest in your universe, and how to cast your characters. Can you imagine Tony Stark being played by anyone other than Robert Downey, Jr.? NO! And the entire MCU rests upon his shoulders.

5. Spider-Man: HomecomingFinally. Finally, we got a Spider-Man movie that got both Peter Parker AND Spider-Man right. FINALLY. Tom Holland is outstanding in both parts of this role, the John Hughes-esque feel of the movie is the perfect conduit through which to tell the story, and Michael Keaton gives us the best villain within the MCU and does so with grit.

4. Captain America: Winter SoldierYou can make a strong case (as Ariel did yesterday) that Winter Soldier is the best movie in this universe. Much like its descendant Civil War, the story surrounding Steve Rogers is what makes the movie work and boy, is this an exciting, well-designed story that essentially turns the movie into a spy thriller with incredible action. (INCREDIBLE action.) The only dips in quality are Robert Redford’s mailed-in performance (so disappointing to me) and the weird Nazi Computer scene that really goes off the rails. The Winter Soldier himself, however: AWESOME.

3. Guardians of the GalaxyOf all the movies on this list, I remember my first Guardians viewing the best. It was an INCREDIBLE theater experience, one of those all-too-rare occasions where the audience was totally with it and the movie brought us all pure, unadulterated joy. It was a wholly unique experience and while the vibe has been copied (by its own sequel, even) since, it still retains its brilliance after many, many viewings.

2. Thor: RagnarokRagnarok did so much to restore Hemsworth’s movie star status while casting the character in a whole new light. I remember thinking Taika Waititi was a weird choice for director and holding a bit of skepticism going in and then, within the first three minutes, understanding exactly what the movie was going for and knowing that it was perfect. To top it all off, whereas Guardians suffers a bit from a mediocre villain, Ragnarok brings in Queen Cate Blanchett who absolutely nails her role and gives the movie some bite. ALSO JEFF GOLDBLUM!!!

1. Black PantherThis is a perfect comic book movie and very nearly a perfect movie overall. It has substance, it has style, it has an outstanding lead actor surrounded by even more outstanding supporting players, and it has a great villain. Black Panther is the total embodiment of what can happen when a studio gives a great director a ton of money and total freedom to make the movie he/she wants to make. The cultural importance of this movie cannot be overstated but I think that, in some ways (for all the right reasons), has come to overshadow how good the movie is just as a movie. I see lots of movies every year that have great intentions and tell an important story but are not actually good movies. Black Panther is a great movie.

As a parent, I am, perhaps annoyingly, particularly attuned to bad parenting in movies. Whether it’s out and out evil parenting, typical inattentive and/or negligent parenting, or bad parenting decisions made simply for the sake of plot convenience, I find myself making mental notes on the moms and dads I see on screen, usually in terms of what not to do. So, as a Movie Parenting aficionado (self-certified), when I tell you the dad in the original Pet Sematary is one of the worst movie dads ever, I expect you’ll trust my educated opinion. When you watch Pet Sematary (you should not watch Pet Sematary, for the record), the first thing that jumps out at you is Herman Munster’s accent. This is undebatable; the accent should be listed as a character unto itself. But the second thing that makes itself incredibly obvious within the first five minutes of the film is that Dr. Louis Creed (played by Dale Midkiff) is a horrible, HORRIBLE parent. Let’s have a look, chronologically through the timeline of the film, at the twenty biggest mistakes Mr. Creed makes as the events of Pet Sematary unfolds.

(Perhaps it goes without saying but HERE BE SPOILERS.)

1.) Buys a house on a very busy street, apparently, without ever having visited the house.I’m sure Mr. Creed is not the first person to have bought a house without ever actually visiting said house but my guy, you’ve got two small children and a cat. Might want to make sure there’s not a very busy trucker road located fourteen feet from your front door. Also, there’s a path to a pet cemetery on your property. You probably want to know that before you buy.

2.) Leaves his tiny son all alone right next to said very busy street.To be fair, this one is at least partially on his wife but still: I get that your daughter is hurt and you need to make sure she’s okay but someone needs to take charge of the tiny toddler because, again, you bought a stupid house and he is at all times no further than fourteen feet away from being crushed by a large truck.

3.) Has a cat. Never own a cat in a movie, you guys.

4.) Talks to his weird neighbor (Jud Crandall). Never talk to your weird neighbor whether you’re in a movie or real life.

5.) Allows the creepy housekeeper to come back a second time after the first very creepy encounter. I’m willing to give the Creeds a pass on the initial hire of the very creepy Ms. Dandridge. They’re new in town and looking for help, it stands to reason that they don’t know she’s a creeper. But one visit is really all it should take to make sure she never comes back again.

6.) Follows weird neighbor to a cursed burial ground. Mr. Crandall: “Hey I know I just met you yesterday or something, but I see that your cat is dead. Would you mind following me up in into the mountains while carrying the carcass? We’re gonna walk right on past an actual pet cemetery and I don’t plan on telling you what we’re doing until we actually get to our destination.”Mr. Creed: “Sure.”

7.) Actually buries the cat in said cursed burial ground. Mr. Crandall: “Now that you’ve followed me past the pet cemetery and into the mountains, we’ve arrived at this VERY CLEARLY MARKED cursed burial ground. Time for you to bury your cat here.”Mr. Creed: “Sure.”

8.) Doesn’t blanch when the neighbor says they have to keep the cat’s burial a secret.At this point, I’d understand the impetus to not wanna be really open with what just happened because you’ve made a lot of dumb mistakes in this whole operation and maybe you’d rather just keep that to yourself. But as soon as your weird neighbor starts making a deal about not telling anyone what’s what, that’s when you’ve got to know that you very much DO need to tell someone.

9.) Accepts the neighbor’s excuse for leading him into this whole mess in the first place.This fool knew exactly what was going to happen with your formerly dead cat, having experienced the terrifying rebirth of a pet himself, instructed you to follow suit, and you’re just totally cool with his reasoning? Come on, bro!

10.) Doesn’t kill the cat even though it has freaky glowing eyes. Okay, alright, we’re in this now. You’ve made some bad choices, but you can still salvage something out of this whole thing if you just Old Yeller the cat right away. But instead, this fool just lets the cat stick around and basically haunt the house like it’s no big deal that his eyes are glowing like that.

11.) Basically cops out when his daughter asks him about the afterlife. You may not have all the answers, and no one will fault you for being vague. But when your daughter asks you about the afterlife, having just attended her first funeral, your answer CANNOT be, “Eh, I dunno.”

12.) Doesn’t freak out when his wife admits to laughing maniacally when her sister died.This is probably the most disturbing scene in the movie. I know you’re married and stuff and you want to support your spouse. But I gotta be honest, if my wife comes at me with that kind of crazy, I’m at least making some calls and looking for a couch to crash on if nothing else. Instead, good ol’ Louis is just COOL with this information.

13.) Lets his son get hit by a truck.A couple things here. One, you KNOW this road is apparently destination number one for big rigs so maybe you wanna keep an eye on that. Two, toddlers are slow. You could give my kid a 50-yard head start on a 55-yard race and I’d still smoke him, not even accounting for his life being on the line. All things considered, we may be vacating the territory covered by “negligence” and moving on into “criminal negligence.”

14.) Does not listen to the ghost when he warns him about the cursed burial ground.You should always listen to and heed the advice of ghosts. Always.

15.) Goes right on ahead and digs up his dead son despite the warnings from a ghost. We all grieve in different ways and it’s not cool to mock someone’s grief process…unless that grief process involves the exhumation of your recently deceased toddler son despite a ghost very clearly telling you not to do that. Also, WHY IS HE SMILING while digging up his son?! What is happening?!

16.) Swears to dead son that, “It’s going to be alright.”Narrator: It was not alright.

17.) Leaves his scalpel just sitting around in his bag where literally anyone can get it.I have no idea if real surgeons do this or if it’s just a movie thing. Regardless, if you’ve got kids in the house (even if you can’t anticipate the resurrection of your demon toddler although you probably should since that’s exactly what you plotted to bring about), I’m going to suggest not leaving an extremely sharp blade in your bag where any little hands could get ahold of it.

18.) Does not just THROW the murderous zombie baby when he is being attacked. Babies do not weigh much. Even murderous zombie babies weigh, at most, 30 pounds. Chuck that sucker down the stairs, dude!!! I know he has a scalpel and stuff, but he is a baby! Throw him!

19.) Learns literally nothing from this experience and goes ahead and buries his dead wife in cursed burial ground.So, let’s get this straight. Your cat came back to life and was essentially the worst version of a cat ever. Then a ghost told you not to re-bury your dead son, but you didn’t listen. Then said dead son kills your wife and your weird neighbor and tried to kill you. Somehow you survived. And to commemorate the occasion, you make the mind-boggling decision to run it back and try it again with your dead wife? Alright, man, you reap what you sow.

20.) Makes out with dead wife. Just me but I’m super uninterested in making out with my recently dead wife while her eye is hanging out of her head having been, you know, recently murdered by my zombie toddler. But you do you, Louis. You do you.

When the Mavericks won the NBA Championship in 2011, I was in a state of euphoria that lasted for maybe six months. It was a Sports High that I had never experienced previously and probably will never experience again. At some point in the hours following the final buzzer, Lindsey jokingly said to me, “You are insane right now. I think you’re happier now than you were when we got married.” I smiled sheepishly and replied, “Well…I mean…I’ve known Dirk longer.”

I cannot in good faith recommend that line of logic to any young (or old) men looking for marriage advice but there is a bit of truth to our exchange. I attended my first Mavs game in 1991 and fell in love with both the team and the game. My unbridled admiration was repaid with a decade of Mavericks basketball that was like something out of a Sports Nightmare. 11 wins (out of 82) the first season, 13 (again, out of 82; this is very not good, if you’re wondering) the following season, the devastating trade of my favorite player (Derek Harper), a hint of light in the form of Jason Kidd and the Three J’s in 1995 that was quickly dashed out by a feud involving Toni Braxton (she did NOT unbreak my heart), etc. The mid-to-late 90’s were mostly made up of bad basketball, embarrassing facilities, and a revolving door of stiff white guys who seemed to relish every opportunity to get dunked on by the rest of the league while Young Brian looked on in horror and disgust. It was all very, very bad and I watched or listened to every single game, pleading for a team that was merely competent if not actually good.

I was 15 when the Mavericks drafted a skinny white dude from Germany, and I was furious. If there was anything worse than a tall white basketball player, it was a tall white basketball player from EUROPE. Just one time I wanted to root for someone who had actual skill and athleticism, someone who was tough, someone who could maybe be the dunker instead of the dunkee every once in a while. I didn’t hate Dirk Nowitzki; if anything, I pitied him. He was very clearly not prepared for life in the NBA and the Mavs’ coach and GM, Don Nelson, kept touting him as a future great. It was embarrassing, really, and worse, it felt like Dirk was embarrassed, too. Like when you’re eight and your parents want you to sing in front of a group of adults and you know you’re really not that good of a singer in the first place and why do these random adults want to hear you sing about the state bird of Texas or something, anyway. That’s how Dirk looked on the floor.

Me, at 15 (or maybe 14, it doesn’t matter, the bad look has always been the same), and Dirk, at his introductory press conference.

At the end of that first season, you could begin to see, if you squinted your eyes really, really hard, an actual basketball player somewhere in there. Not necessarily a good basketball player and certainly not a future great like Nelson predicted; but just a solid, competent basketball player. “That would be something,” I thought. “If he could just be, like, a decent role player, that would salvage something out of this draft pick.” And then he went home to Germany and hung out with his savant coach, Holger, and he worked. his. butt. off. The next season, he was, almost unbelievably, a good basketball player! And then he went home to Germany and he hung out with Holger and he worked. his. butt. off. The next season, he was one of the 15 best players in the league and the Mavs won a playoff series for the first time in over a decade. And then he went home to…You get the picture. Every season, Dirk Nowitzki came back from the offseason a better player and a stronger man, physically and mentally, ready to take on whatever the NBA had to throw at him. His work ethic is the stuff of legends in NBA circles. He became a top-five player. He won the MVP award. He battled with some of the best players the NBA has ever seen spanning two (and maybe even three) generations. And he won a championship in the most unlikely fashion imaginable.

There were many things I didn’t know about Dirk Nowitzki when his rookie season ended in 1999. I didn’t know how much joy he would bring me over the next 20 years. I didn’t know about his brilliant, dry, self-deprecating sense of humor. I didn’t know how incredibly hard he worked. I didn’t know that he would lead my favorite team, a truly cursed franchise, to unbelievable heights and nearly unparalleled long-term success. I didn’t know how angry I would get when someone, anyone, disrespected him or his legacy. I didn’t know that by the end of it all, he would stand amongst the very best of all the players to ever pick up a basketball by virtually every statistical and anecdotal standard known to man. I didn’t know that he would someday strap his team, the organization, the city, and the fans to his back and almost single-handedly carry us all to Basketball Glory. I didn’t know I would spend the week surrounding his retirement in a constant state of tears-or-almost-tears. I didn’t know that 21 years after that first game, I’d be making my son watch an old man limp up and down the court in hopes that he would retain some memory of seeing him play.

There have been so, so many great things written and said about Dirk over the last few days. (This piece from The Ringer is great, this video that fronted the TV coverage of the final home game absolutely gutted me, and this video brought Dirk to tears in the arena on Tuesday. Also, this and this and this and this and this.) Likewise, there are thousands of stories I would like to include here and in fact, I have written and cut out many, many words from this piece and tucked them away into a file I’ll definitely open someday when I definitely write that book about basketball I am definitely going to write. In the interest of time, I want to touch on two points that have come up frequently in the Dirk coverage.

One, during the post-game ceremony on Tuesday night - which saw Dirk surprised by the arrival of his five basketball heroes - both Charles Barkley and Larry Bird referenced their respect for Dirk because he, “Played the game the right way.” The aforementioned work ethic. The fierce, fierce competitiveness and intensity that burned through him on the court. The 80-odd million dollars he left on the table over the years in order to give the team a chance to bring in free agents, rather than demanding the very last dollar he was entitled to in each contract negotiation. The fact that, as has been the source of much celebration this week, he played with one team his entire career, riding the roller coaster that is professional sports in the ups and the downs and providing a source of stability in a world that rarely sees it. The consistency with which he made the right decision, the right play, over and over again with no regard to his own ego or statistics. (Even on Tuesday, during his swan song, with the crowd going INSANE every time he touched the ball, multiple times he passed up difficult shots because it was the right basketball play.) There’s a humility to Dirk that almost doesn’t exist within professional athletes and it flows through everything he does on the court and off. That stuff is contagious and it’s why you can scarcely find a player with anything bad to say about Dirk, it’s why the Mavericks were able to take in players with bad reputations and “fix” them multiple times over the years, it’s why all-time legends like Bird and Barkley will come out for his last game and laud him effusively.

The second thing that’s been a great point of emphasis is the connection between Dirk and the city of Dallas. In the video I linked above, Mark Followill (the Mavs’ play-by-play broadcaster for the last 19 years) mentions the sense that permeated the Metroplex during the epic run of 2011 that we wanted the Mavs to win, of course, because this was our team, but also, and maybe even more importantly, because we wanted it for Dirk. I had kind of forgotten about that in the years since 2011 until this week and it hit home while watching that video. There was this bond between us all, a shared sentiment, that our experience, our happiness, was less important than Dirk’s or maybe that our prospective happiness was tied into Dirk’s happiness. You almost couldn’t talk about the Mavs and their pursuit of the championship in 2011 without someone (or everyone) saying something like, “I just want Dirk to win a ring. That guy deserves it.” That feeling has only grown in the post-championship years. We feel this way because he’s played the game the right way and because, whereas some superstars shirk responsibility while simultaneously seeking recognition, Dirk has always operated in the exact opposite fashion: He’s actively gone out and sought the pressure that comes with carrying a team and a city and a fanbase while never making it about himself. Add to that his openness off the court, his willingness to do stupid bits for in-arena videos, his charity work, his unprecedented loyalty to a team, even when, frankly, the team did not deserve his loyalty, the kindness that he willingly shows to his fans (especially kids), and the genuineness with which he has carried himself from the beginning. What you see with Dirk is who Dirk is and because he’s shared that with us, we’ve embraced him in a way that is almost entirely unique in this era of sports. I hope you can understand how rare that is, even if you don’t know a thing about sport.

My generation and I are the luckiest of all Mavs fans. I have quite literally grown up with Dirk Nowitzki and watched him grow up as well. I got a long, terrible taste of what it was like to root for the Mavs pre-Dirk and then rode along with him for 21 years, 1500 games, 15 playoff appearances, and one glorious, perfect championship. He IS Dallas to me and I’m far from alone in that sentiment. It is highly unlikely that any team will ever have THIS, this feeling, this moment, this experience, again, let alone the Mavs. And even still, even with the sense that it’s likely all downhill from here, we should consider ourselves among the luckiest of sports fans.

Thank you, Dirk. Thank you for teaching me about hard work. Thank you for providing stability for a franchise that desperately needed it. Thank you for being the rare athlete with an actual sense of humor. Thank you for over 31,000 points and 1,000 wins. Thank you for being Uncle Dirk to hundreds of sick kids and their families. Thank you for playing with unbelievable intensity that almost never boiled over into hostility. Thank you for sticking around long enough for my son to know your name. Thank you for 2011.

You know who doesn’t have an Academy Award nomination and who definitely should have at least an Academy Award nomination if not an actual Academy Award? John Goodman. I’m sure if I did an exhaustive search of both memory and my vast assortment of movie-related spreadsheets, I could turn up a big bunch of actors and actresses who should have been nominated for an Oscar by now but haven’t been. But in this very moment, if you asked me who is the best working actor/actress who doesn’t have at least an Oscar nomination on his/her resume, I’d name Goodman and feel good about my answer.

John Goodman is the best. He’s a heck of actor, by all accounts a great guy, and someone who brings joy to my heart every time he shows up on screen no matter how large or small the role. He’s also one of the original American Treasures that Richard and I came up with before Mad About Movies even began and obviously, I expect this is the achievement of which he is proudest. With Captive State opening this weekend, I looked back at his illustrious career and picked my five favorite movie performances.

5. John Chambers, ArgoThis felt like the performance that was most likely to bring an Oscar nomination, though Supporting Actor is always a deep category. I’m not sure there is a better example of Goodman’s inherent likability and pleasantness than what you get with Chambers. The character exudes a much-needed sense of optimism that perfectly balances the inherent hopelessness that exists within the plot.

4. Sully, Monsters Inc. and UniversityI’m always ready to ride or die for a Pixar movie and Monsters Inc. is one of their best in my estimation. I love how Goodman (and Billy Crystal, too) blends his personality into the on-screen character and I think that’s part of what makes the heart of the movie, Sully and Boo, work so well. Sometimes in animation, the voice is just the voice and the art is just the art and there’s a sense of separation between the two parts. That’s not the case with Goodman and Sully and because of that, I think, you get one of the truly great characters in the Pixar universe.

3. Gale, Raising ArizonaThis was basically my only frame of reference for Goodman for many years, having never watched Roseanne during its first run. I loved Raising Arizona from an early (too early?) age and always found Gale to be hilarious. Now I see the classic Goodman traits all over this character and it’s kind of amazing that he had such a great sense of identity this early in his career.

2. Howard, 10 Cloverfield LaneGoodman hasn’t dabbled much in on-screen villainy but 10 Cloverfield Lane exemplifies what a great villain he can be when called upon. Howard is creepy, to be sure, but he’s also very caring and he keeps his craziness relegated to his edges so that you’re never quite sure of what you did and did not see; little pockets of anger that burst forth then dance back behind his pleasant-ish façade. I’d wager it’s a much more nuanced performance than you’d get from most actors in his place and his ability to keep both the audience and his on-screen counterparts on unstable ground makes this movie what it is.

1. Walter Sobchak, The Big LebowskiI could expand this list out to 20 or 30 entries, but the top spot would never be in jeopardy. Goodman fits the Coen’s world so incredibly well, whether it’s in the aforementioned Raising Arizona or a short stint as a stoic passenger in Inside Llewyn Davis but Lebowski is where he truly shines. Walter is a buffoon and an unhinged buffoon at that but with Goodman at the wheel, he’s a thousand times more likable and memorable than he has any right to be. To be sure, the Coens gave him some INCREDIBLE lines to deliver but it is the actual delivery that brings them home and Goodman knocks every single one of his scenes out of the park. As much as I love Jeff Bridges in the lead and admire the work of Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Julianne Moore, and the rest, I think it’s Goodman that holds the movie together and provides the most entertainment.

In this, the year of our Lord, 2019, my kid has access to approximately 100 billion TV shows and movies and that’s not even counting the weird stuff happening over on YouTube. My kid, probably like most of your kids or your future hypothetical kids, is brilliant at finding the absolute dumbest, most annoying TV show or movie to watch and then becoming obsessed with it. Did you know there are, like, 47 different Power Rangers shows on Netflix? I didn’t. But now I do. Because my kid is adept at finding them. Do you know what Mini Force is? I didn’t. But now I do. And, guys, I really wish I still didn’t. Did you know that, if you let them, kids will watch the same exact movie not just every single day but multiple times every single day? They’re not like normal humans who watch a movie once and then think, “That was great. I’ll watch that again someday.” No. They think, “That was great. I shall watch it again immediately and then probably again and again and again until the adult in charge of me loses his/her mind.” It’s maddening. There is an overwhelming abundance of choices available to these little monsters and somehow, they never make the right choice.

We watch a lot of movies in my household (duh) and I try to pick my spots as to when to force a movie of my choosing upon my son, in theory so as to broaden his horizons but in reality, so as to keep my brain from becoming Minionized. With both LEGO Movie 2 and How to Train Your Dragon: Hidden World dropping this month, I thought I’d have a look at a handful of non-Pixar/Disney animated kid’s movies that are actually good and equally enjoyable for kids and adults alike. These are my go-to “suggestions” (read: “I will give you three options and you can choose which movie you want from those three movies”) for my kid when he’s watched too much Mini Force or tried to trick me into letting him watch Despicable Me 3 for the 400th time this month. You’re welcome, parents and future parents.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs SeriesThe first of these movies is definitely better than the second and the second is definitely better than the TV series. But these are favorites of mine in part because the voice talent is substantial (Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Anna Faris, etc.) and in part because Lord and Miller directed the first movie and brought to it the kinds of witty humor you’d expect. The movies differentiate extensively from the book if you’re concerned about that kind of nonsense but they’re vibrant in color and humor.

How to Train Your Dragon SeriesI am supremely pumped for the third and final movie in this series and I know my kid is, too, considering he has asked me when it comes out literally every single day for the last month. This series will grow on you quickly if you let it and the themes mature and progress substantially from the first movie to the second. I like the messaging at the core of these movies and the depth of the characters surpasses all but the very best Pixar has to offer.

The Iron GiantThe reputation of this one precedes itself as it is one of the more popular, better-received animated films of the last 25 years and comes from the brilliant mind of Brad Bird. I confess, this isn’t my favorite animated movie and I think the animation is only so-so. But, the actual Iron Giant himself is AWESOME, Vin Diesel provides the voice (always a plus, obviously), and one time, my son watched this movie four times in one day (thanks a lot, random snow day in Texas) and not only was he entertained, I wasn’t stabbing my eyes out with fork so that probably says a lot about the movie’s quality.

The LEGO MoviesI would hazard to guess that of all the movies on this list, and perhaps all animated movies in general, my son has probably watched The LEGO Movie the most. Combine that with LEGO Batman and LEGO Ninjago and you’ve got yourself a highly entertaining universe with strong messages that is insanely rewatchable. Plus, in a rare win-win for parents and soulless corporations alike, it has proven nearly impossible for my child to watch a LEGO movie without then wanting to play with and build LEGOs. Does this cost me more money? Yeah, it totally does. But is it awesome that he wants to actually play instead of stare at a screen? Yeah, it totally is.

The LoraxMost Dr. Seuss movies have turned out poorly and, I admit, The Lorax isn’t great, at least in comparison to the best animated kid’s movies on the market. But, for one, I love this book and its central themes. And two, it serves as a good introduction (or re-introduction after the original Grinch) to all things Seuss if your kid hasn’t come around on the books or needs a screen to tell him/her something is cool. The movie looks great, too, with a lot of pop-off-the-screen colors that will keep your kid entertained without them ever noticing that they’re actually absorbing the story’s moral (maniacal laugh).

MegamindI had mostly forgotten about Megamind after seeing it in theaters in 2010 until we got HBOGo and it popped up on the kid’s feed. This has a great voice cast, the action moves with great purpose, and there are a ton of jokes for the adults. Plus, it’s kind of nice watching a superhero movie that is disconnected from the MCU or the DCEU.

Over the HedgeThe caveat on this one is, it’s not an “anytime, all the time” kind of movie. Meaning, it’s not so good that you will want to watch it over and over; you have to pick your spots. This is one I’ll bust out when Cooper INSISTS on an animated movie and we’ve already gone through most of my favorites and allllll of his. I save it for the longest part of summer break or the Christmas holidays, stuff like that. It’s a fun movie with lively animation and a touch of the Minions-type humor that will keep your kid entertained without totally melting his/her brain. Best of all, the soundtrack is all Ben Folds songs and I’m always looking for ways to teach my kid how to rock the suburbs.

TrollsYeah, you read that right. I’m recommending Trolls. Sorry not sorry. I’m not saying it’s Pixar, obviously, but if I have to choose between Despicable Me, another round of PJ Masks, or Power Rangers Ninja Turbo Storm Steel (possibly not a real title but who knows, really) and Trolls, I’m taking Trolls every time. The movie’s got jokes, the story is fun, and the music is super catchy which means you’ll hate yourself three days later when you’re STILL humming “Can’t Stop This Feeling” but your kid will be entertained no matter how many times you watch it and will probably leave you alone for an hour so you can get some work done or, like, lay on the couch and stare off into space.

On Wednesday, I picked little dude up from school and on the walk back home (which is basically, like, two very long baseball throws away from where I meet him after school), he complained that his legs hurt. This is a relatively common refrain as he is growing and has the minor pains to show for it and also, I limp around pretty much all the time due to various stupid leg ailments and he thinks this is how humans are supposed to be. I don’t know how to tell him that I just need new legs and most humans can actually walk without their ankles clicking continuously. Anyway, I kind of brushed off his complaints as his way of trying to get out of swim lessons which he doesn’t love and told him he was fine.

Cut to three hours later when his “growing pains” had turned into full body aches, a headache, a stomach ache, and a 103-degree fever and a nurse practitioner telling us he has the flu.

Coop was utterly miserable, but he handled every part of the exam like a champ until the doctor said, “No school for you tomorrow, little man.” At this point, he started crying (softly, as is his way, no big wails) not because he has some great love for school (he super does NOT) but because “tomorrow” was Valentine’s Day and this diagnosis meant he would be missing his Valentine’s Day party. I have a soft-hearted kid who gets so pumped for all elements of a party, who spent a lot of time meticulously writing, “To my friend, From Cooper” on all of his Valentine’s, who had been talking about this day for a solid week. To miss this dinky little class party seemed like the cruelest twist of the entire flu experience (to that point). I held him against my chest while he cried and Lindsey promised to, “throw an even better party than the school party.”

The last 24 hours have been pretty miserable. No parent likes to see their kid suffer (except the mom from Mommy Dead and Dearest (LOOK IT UP)) and real sickness is one of the worst kinds of kid suffering. The Tamiflu mixed with fever dreams made him act incredibly weird a few times in the night and twice I sat with him while he puked and cried, “I don’t like being sick.” But still, I think it was missing the party that hurt him the worst. I had a bag of new toys for him when he woke up and we lounged together all day, watching movies and building LEGOs, the kind of day he longs for most of the time, but I could tell he was bummed.

Then I got a text from our friend, Emily: “I left something for Cooper on the porch. The sadness of missing a school party just broke my heart.”

I got Coop up from the couch for the first time in literally six hours and had him look on the porch where we found a bag full of goodies and a balloon. He smiled for the first time all day while pulling out coloring books and stickers and Black Panther tattoos and all kinds of good stuff that for sure trumped whatever he would’ve gotten at school. He was still running a huge fever and not eating but at least he was running a huge fever and not eating while applying Black Panther tattoos, you know? His spirit lifted.

An hour later, I was making some lunch and Lucy Dog lost her mind, indicating someone had knocked. I opened the door to see another friend, Pam, getting back into her car. Waving, she said, “No kid should miss out on a class party, so we brought him a present” and drove off. Again, I got Coop up from the couch and brought him to the porch to discover a bouquet of balloons and a bag of homemade cookies (the greatest cookies known to man). Again, his feverish little body was wiped but his spirits rose.

A bit later, Coop had caught on to this little game and suggested we check the porch again just in case there were more presents. “I think that was the end of it, pal,” I said with a laugh. I was wrong.

Not long after Lindsey got home from work, she got a text from yet another friend, Micah, alerting her to a third front porch delivery. We brought Coop out again to find a huge bag of Valentine’s goodies, a drink from Sonic, and a card from his three best friends. He smiled from ear to ear and I think, maybe for the first time, he saw how well this day had turned out in spite of the flu’s best efforts.

If I tell you, dear reader, that it was not entirely surprising that three different people would go out of their way to bring my son Valentine’s Day gifts just because he got the flu, something that millions of people are dealing with right now and which does not make him or us special, I hope you will take that as an indication of the incredible quality of the people who make up our Community. (I’m capitalizing it from here on out regardless of what my autocorrect tells me. That’s right, autocorrect, from now on, it’s Community with a capital ‘C’.) Lindsey and I have always tried to build strong relationships with the people around us, to use our house as a gathering place, to speak into the lives of our friends when called upon (and probably sometimes when not called upon) and I’m sure that’s built some currency amongst our people. But, truthfully, this is just who these people are. They come to see a disinterested four-year-old play soccer. They send texts of encouragement when work is challenging. They set out balloons and banners on the first day of school. They stay up all hours of the night exchanging TikTok videos because it’s been a long week and I need a laugh. They leave Valentine’s presents on the porch for a sad, sick little boy. In short, they show up when they’re needed and boy, were they needed today.

Find Community, y’all. Seek it out and pour yourself into it. Surround yourself with people who are good, people who care, people who show up when they’re needed most, and do your best to do the same for them. Because there will be a day when you really do need that Community most, when your tire is flat or you lose your job or you have a possum in your attic or your child misses his Valentine’s Day party because he has the flu. Thanks to all those who have taken on my son as a part of their Community.

When determining the merits of a year in film, whether or not the year was “good”, I’m looking for one of two things: true greatness or depth. (I’d like both, but I’ll settle for one.) Looking back over 2018 and the hundred-and-ten-or-so films I saw this year, I’m not sure I can pinpoint true greatness; I’m talking, like, iconic, masterpiece-level movies. But depth? Yeah, 2018 had some real depth to it. I gave out A’s (A+ to A- on my very scientific, official rating scale) to 45 movies (and I’m sure I’ll add some more to that total as I finish out the rest of my list), a fairly high number compared to years past, and there are plenty of movies I quite enjoyed, that I’ll watch many times over in the future, which ultimately didn’t sniff my top 25 (Game Night, Ready Player One, and Solo to name a few). On the podcast this week, we’ll each go over our top ten and worst ten of the year but as a precursor, here’s a look at the best of 2018 that was under consideration or just missed a top-ten finish.

25. Creed IIThis movie had so much to live up to in my eyes as Creed is a bona fide perfect movie and one that I watch constantly, always through a storm of tears. II put up a noble effort, became a worthy follow-up, and fully passed the torch from Rocky Balboa to Adonis Creed. Will be interesting to see where this franchise goes moving forward.

24. American AnimalsA very inventive, fun movie with a sobering sense of morality as its backbone. I had no knowledge of this story going in and spent the bulk of the film’s runtime trying to figure out if the interviews with the supposed real-life criminals were actually real interviews or if this was all a figment of director Bart Layton’s imagination. Layton has a great sense of the audience’s intrigue, I think, and pulls the strings beautifully throughout. Animals also features a couple of great performances, that of Evan Peters in particular.

23. First ManThis was one of my most anticipated films of the year and yet, for all its beauty and technical brilliance, it left me a bit cold. In this, I think Damien Chazelle succeeded in making an outstanding film but perhaps came up short in connecting with the audience, something he did so well in both Whiplash and La La Land. Gosling is a marvel, though, and the moon landing sequence is truly breathtaking.

22. Ralph Breaks the InternetLike Creed II, this movie pales a bit in comparison to its predecessor but overall, I found Ralph to be a blast to watch and expertly crafted. Its conceit and the meta-ness of its story work, I think, quite well and Disney has come quite a long way in creating a thriving franchise with what could have been a one-off character.

21. Bad Times at the El RoyaleAs the president of the “Cabin in the Woods Is Fine But Not Nearly As Good As Y’all Make It Out To Be” coalition for reason, I am of the opinion that Drew Goddard will one day make a perfect film. Bad Times isn’t quite that, straying just a tad here and there from the path of perfection, but it is darn good and features some of the best performances of the year (Cynthia Erivo and Jeff Bridges in particular). Plus, the Chris Hemsworth dance scene still haunts me but sort of in a good way?

20. Paddington 2The first movie I saw in 2018, it was all too easy to overlook Paddington 2 as the year wound down. But, upon rewatch, I was reminded of its sheer delightfulness and how unbelievably enjoyable these movies are. I didn’t know I needed a grumpy Brendan Gleeson teaming up with Paddington in order for my dreams to come true but now I do and they have and I am very happy.

19. The RiderThe winner of the Gotham Independent Spirit award for Best Picture, The Rider came out of nowhere for me and left me a teary-eyed mess. Chloe Zaho’s film is basically a documentary with a script in place, seemingly, only to give her novice actors a shove in the right direction. It is equal parts touching and gut-wrenching and you’re not sure until the final frames which side of that equation will win out.

18. The Ballad of Buster ScruggsBuster Scruggs is equal parts hilarious, dark, weird, triumphant, and sobering. So, what I’m saying is, “This is a Coen Brothers’ movie.” Of the six Western-themed vignettes within Scruggs, five are outstanding with the closing chapter serving as the only outlier, but frankly, I could’ve gone for another half-dozen or so chapters without any trouble and hope the Coens return to this type of filmmaking again in the future.

17. Isle of DogsI had Isle in my top ten for the bulk of the year but confess I enjoyed it more the first time around than the second, the opposite of my experience with most Wes Anderson films. Still, I love the style and find this to be one of the funniest movies of the year, maybe THE funniest. Better still are the well-defined, relatable characters, quite a feat considering most of them are stop-motion dogs.

16. Leave No TraceA small, quiet, brilliant film featuring two outstanding performances in the form of Ben Foster and newcomer Thomasin McKenzie. Debra Granik has a remarkable eye for talent (Winter’s Bone was Jennifer Lawrence’s breakout film right before her Hunger Games casting) but even more, an eye for story. Leave No Trace is an ode to a simpler form of life and the people who would choose it if only society would let them and Granik brings that home with aplomb.

15. Ant-Man and the Wasp2018 was one of the better years for superhero movies (even as we approach the brink of superhero fatigue) and this movie was a big part of that overarching success. I think this was a HUGE step in turning this branch of the MCU into its own, self-sustaining limb, and provided some of the biggest laughs and purely enjoyable sequences of the year. Because I live with a five-year-old who wants to be Black Panther when he grows up, I have seen that movie many more times but if it were up to me, I might put this film at the very top of the MCU in terms of rewatchability.

14. The Old Man & the GunI’ll have more on Robert Redford himself in my favorite performances piece later this week so, without stealing too much from my future self, I’ll just say that Old Man is quite literally written specifically for Redford and it shows. David Lowery has rapidly became one of my very, VERY favorite filmmakers and Old Man did nothing but reaffirm his versatile brilliance in my mind. Perhaps the most charming movie of the year, if nothing else.

13. Deadpool 2The combination of 2016’s Deadpool and 2017’s Logan have completely upended the world of superhero movies and Deadpool 2 builds upon that (in some cases quite literally) very well. Deadpool was excellent in its own right and I know I, along with other fans of the movie, worried what the sequel might look like, especially after original director Tim Miller parted ways with the franchise. As it turns out, it is NEVER a bad idea to add Josh Brolin to your movie (unless your movie is Jonah Hex *ziiiinnnngggg*) and this sequel actually turned out better than its predecessor in my mind.

12. Mary Poppins ReturnsI went all over the place in anticipation for this one, back and forth between expected greatness and expected corporate blandness. Ultimately, the former won out and I couldn’t have been happier with this finished product. This wasn’t one of my favorite movies as a child or one that I’ve revisited numerous times as an adult but within ten minutes of the opening the credits, I was overwhelmed by how much I wanted/needed Mary Poppins in my life; I genuinely had no idea that connection existed within my soul. Returns is an utter delight and a beautiful reminder of the classic Disney magic that is often overlooked in a swath of lightsabers and Vibranium (both things that I also love, by the way). And did I mention that Emily Blunt is perfect and delightful and I love her? Well, I will in my next piece.

11. BlindspottingI S-T-R-U-G-G-L-E-D with leaving Blindspotting out of my top ten and I still don’t feel good about it. This movie came and went with little-to-no fanfare (I’m not sure I ever even saw a trailer) which is a real travesty given how outstanding the performances are and the significance of its message and themes. Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal proved to be one of the truly great on-screen pairings of the year and I’m still thinking about the film over a month after my viewing. I expect we will hear much, much more from writer-director Carlos Lopez Estrada in the near future.

I read all the time as a kid. Allllll the time. At some point, that stopped and while I still accumulated books (because I love physical media, I still very much enjoy the purchasing of actual books), I wasn’t reading them nearly as much as I was storing them on a shelf. I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions but three years ago, I decided I was not happy with my reading output and vaguely vowed to “read more.” In 2016, I read 23 books. In 2017, I upped it to 33. In 2018, my goal was 45 books and, thanks in VERY large part to the angels at Audible who are doing the Lord’s work, I messed around and read 52. I like making lists, I like ranking things for no real reason, and I like large writing projects and so, I have chosen to write far too many words on all the books I read last year and hope you will at least browse through for some potential recommendations and thus, make the many hours I have spent on this in neglect of my wife, child, and friends seem worthwhile.

I did not include within this list the books I took on in 2018 which I had read previously. These included: “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeline L’Engle, “Slaughterhouse 5” by Kurt Vonnegut, “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, “The Breaks of the Game” by David Halberstam, and the “Red Rising” trilogy by Pierce Brown. All of these books would likely land somewhere in my top twenty for the year, with “Breaks” and the “Red Rising” trilogy coming in at or near the very top, but it didn’t feel right to count re-reads in the same group as new-reads. But just as a side recommend, the “Red Rising” trilogy is pretty much always available on Audible and iBooks/Kindle sales and I loved them even more on the second reading and you should give them a chance if they are even a little bit your thing.

BAD BOOKS45. “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.” - Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland (Audiobook) As a Stage 8 Completionist, I am physiologically incapable of quitting a book, movie, stupid sports team that hurts me over and over again, etc. (I actually quit two books this year and my therapist is very proud of me.) “DODO” reeeeaaalllyyyy put that to the test both in terms of the story and the sheer length of the book. As an 8-10 hour read, “DODO” would’ve been harmless enough; as a near-30 hour read, “tedious” began to take on a whole new meaning.

44. “Old Records Never Die” - Eric Spitznagel (Book)The subtitle for this book could’ve been, “The Author of this Book is a Truly Miserable Person and You Will Hate Him a Little More with Every Page You Turn.” I commend authors for not sugarcoating their life stories in autobiographies (see below) but woof, at some point, some serious soul-searching might’ve been in order for Mr. Spitznagel.

43. “Signal” - Tony Peak (Audiobook) This was an Audible Original with a promising-enough premise that very quickly fell into a jumble of tropes. Worse yet, the reading was grating and even the sound mix was bad. I finished the book and moved on without formal complaint but apparently enough listeners did complain because a few weeks later, Audible emailed me to say they felt “Signal” wasn’t up to their standards and they gave me a free credit to make up for it. Because Audible loves me and they want me to be happy.

NOT GOOD BOOKS42. “Pilot X” - Tom Merritt (Audiobook) As with “DODO”, time travel proved to be too tricky a concept for the author to navigate here. Too much of “Pilot X” felt like an intensive explainer on gobbledygook while the rest felt like it was trying to find ways to work around said gobbledygook. At least this book was short and forgettable enough.

41. “Dreams and Shadows” - C. Robert Cargill (Audiobook) I like Cargill quite a bit and his career path has provided some inspiration for my own prospective writing “career”. “Dreams and Shadows”, however, took its dark fairy tale premise way, way too far for my tastes and I ended up being bummed out by the story most of the time. It’s a shame, really, because I liked the characters and Cargill’s writing (see below) but altogether, it was a bit of an unpleasant read/listen.

40. “Mongrels” - Stephen Graham Jones (Audiobook) Pulpy and harmless, “Mongrels” should’ve found its way into the mediocre category with no aspirations of reaching further. But I found that every time the book started to find its way, to gain some momentum, Graham Jones would move into a tangential storyline or make an unnecessary shift to a side character and it wore me out after a while.

MEDIOCRE BOOKS39. “At the Mountain of Madness” - HP Lovecraft (Audiobook)Lovecraft’s influence on genre writing is, of course, quite substantial. His actual writing has never been my cup of tea, however, and his masterwork (or at least his most popular work) proved no different for me.

38. “Beacon 23” - Hugh Howry (Book)I read the “Silo” trilogy by Howry a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. “Beacon” was a much less inspired effort, albeit a quick, easy read. The setting is interesting enough but the story just doesn’t get anywhere and Howry seems to want to build out the world but never does.

37. “Last Year” - Robert Charles Wilson (Audiobook)There are stretches of “Last Year” that I really enjoyed and the central conceit (a mirror, as it were, that allows the people of the present day to pass into a certain point in the past and vice versa) is well-thought out. Wilson deserves real credit for that as, in my experience, books like this often fall apart in taking a two-sentence idea and turning into a world. I never developed any attachment to or interest in the characters, though, and that was necessary for the book’s back third to come together, I think.

36. “The Spaceship Next Door” - Gene Doucette (Audiobook)This book fell right in line with the average dime store sci-fi paperback from the 40’s and 50’s. It’s a fun idea, it reads easily, the writing is competent, and I forgot almost every detail of the book basically the second I finished it. Nothing wrong with that and at the time, I needed a nice, easy palate cleanser like “Spaceship”, and it did its job adequately.

35. “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” - Gregory Alan Thornbury (Book)I was very excited about this one as Larry Norman is an extremely interesting figure about whom not much has been written over the last 25 years. Unfortunately, Mr. Thornbury’s writing style pales in comparison to his gifts as a researcher. To call this book “dry” would be a great understatement; much of it reads like a very boring doctoral thesis. I started reading “Devil” in July and it was literally the last book I finished on the year after having set it aside numerous times.

34. “Shadow of the Lions” - Christopher Swann (Audiobook)When we’re on a road trip, Lindsey and I usually listen to an audiobook to pass the time. Finding something that appeals to both of our sensibilities and that won’t be scarring to our five-year-old if he happens to take his headphones off for a few minutes isn’t always easy. Thus, a lot of times we end up settling on a mystery/thriller, though it’s not my favorite genre. “Lions” fit the bill on one of our trips and it was just about exactly what I expected: the story was relatively interesting, the reader was solid, the writing was fine, and it passed the time on a long trip. That’s about it.

33. “Something in the Water” - Catherine Steadman (Audiobook)As noted with “Lions”, mysteries aren’t my genre of choice but this one came highly recommended by basically everyone in the entire world and also it was already available in a friend’s Audible account that I hypothetically have access to (free book!). I really enjoyed this one for a while and I’m willing to extend some latitude to characters in this kind of book who must make poor decisions in order for the book to be, you know, a book. But at some point, I found myself internally screaming at the main character to, “JUST ONE TIME MAKE ONE GOOD DECISION FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY JUST MAKE ONE GOOD DECISION PLEASE!!!” It was exhausting and I was angry by the end of it despite the quality of the writing/storytelling overall.

32. “The Queen: Aretha Franklin” - Mikal Gilmore (Audiobook)This was kind of a crash-course in Arethaology that Audible put out as one of its “Originals” selections shortly after her death. As such, it reads more like a longform article on The Queen of Soul more than an actual book, relying extensively on quotations and passages from other books and memoirs. It serves its purpose by giving the reader a Cliff’s Notes version of Aretha’s life but that’s about the extent of its value.

GOOD BOOKS?31. “The Sea of Rust” - C. Robert Cargill (Audiobook)As I said previously, I like Cargill significantly more than I liked the first book of his I read this year, so I came back for more. “Rust” still had its issues, but it had some real peaks and he explored a sci-fi trope (a post-human world) from a unique perspective.

30. “Deadpool and Cable” - Rob Liefield (Book)The only comic book/graphic novel I read this year (after taking on several last year) was at points very fun and at points extremely disjointed. Some comic collections work well as a whole, some do not. This set was too inconsistent to really hit the mark but I still enjoyed the reading more often than not.

29. “Renegades” - Marissa Meyer (eBook)I don’t like stepping into a book series without knowing what I’m committing to up front and thus, “Renegades” is sort of a worst-case scenario for me. Between the time I bought the book on sale and actually read it a few months later, it went from what I thought was a one-off to an announced trilogy (the second book dropped at the end of 2018). This book is, on its own, totally passable and solid enough but I’m not sure I cared enough to read the series and yet there are some questions I’d liked to have answered annnnddd I’m trapped.

28. “Moonglow” - Michael Chabon (eBook)Chabon is a truly GREAT author and his “Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay”, which I read for the first time last year, is a masterpiece. I was very excited for “Moonglow”, billed as part memoir, part family history, but it was a slog to get through. The writing is, of course, excellent, it’s just the story, focusing primarily on Chabon’s maternal grandfather, that drags and drags and drags. Every time I was close to putting it down entirely, however, Chabon rediscovered the better elements of the story and pulled me back in.

27. “Six Years” - Harlan Coben (Audiobook)Another road trip pick, Coben is a master of the “elevated beach read”, a talented writer who could probably pen the next “great American novel” if he wanted but instead pumps out an annual easy read that’s 15 percent better than most of the paperbacks you find in an airport. (I’m not knocking Coben for this, by the way; he’s a genius and I’m very jealous.) “Six Years” is basically the quintessential Coben: great concept, incredibly competent writing, total cookie-cutter ending that could’ve been predicted within the first 50 pages.

GOOD BOOKS!26. “A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War” - Joseph Loconte (Audiobook)Few authors have had a greater impact on my life than JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis so it’s only natural that I’d enjoy a book about their wartime experiences and post-war friendship. Someday, I’ll get around to the more substantial works on both of their lives but Loconte’s book served as a quality crash course on the both of them and highlighted, at great length, the friendship that propelled them toward greatness.

25. “We Are Legion (We Are Bob)” - Dennis E. Taylor (Audiobook)“Legion” was a fun read with a quality concept and self-contained enough that I didn’t feel the need to carry on into the rest of the series. I wish that Taylor would’ve cut the pop culture/nerd culture references by 20 percent, however, though I suspect these references are exactly why the series has a strong pull amongst its target audience. After a while, I felt like the Star Trek callbacks and the like were shoehorned and distracted from Taylor’s own worldbuilding which is actually quite good.

24. “Dead Run” - Dan Schultz (Audiobook)I don’t read much true crime and when I do, I prefer reporting on the facts of a case rather than an investigation into what might have happened. “Dead Run” fits that bill and Schultz does an excellent job of delving into all parts of this story without allowing the telling to become stale or boring.

23. “When Giants Walked the Earth” - Mick Wall (Audiobook)Led Zeppelin is my pick for the greatest rock band of all-time and I’ve had this book sitting on my shelf for years. (I am very good at buying large books and very bad at actually reading them, as it turns out.) I finally accepted the inevitable and snagged the audiobook and it was...not a fun read. I knew enough about the respective heydays of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant going in to know what I was getting myself into but there are long stretches of this book I found aggressively unappealing. Still, Wall is a fantastic writer, his research is unparalleled, and I think he tried to keep the book from becoming a full-on celebration of debauchery and bad behavior despite the band’s best efforts to make it so.

22. “Do Over” - Jon Acuff (Audiobook and Book)I’m not big on self-help/motivational books but I love Acuff so I started reading “Do Over”, like, three years ago hoping it would give me a bit of a push in my writing and podcasting endeavors. I got about two chapters in, had a panic attack, freaked out, and quit. I revisited this year in a much better headspace and with life a little more settled and got a lot out of my reading, including some quality strategies that I’ve used over the last few months.

21. “The Fold” - Peter Clines (Audiobook)Like “We Are Legion”, this book came recommended to me by a couple of my most trusted nerd friends and these nerds did not disappoint! I’ve read some Clines previously (not to be confused with Ernest Cline of “Ready Player One” fame) and usually came away more impressed with his ideas than his writing. For me, this was a big step in the right direction and I enjoyed it enough to plan on reading his follow-up this year.

20. “The Boy on the Bridge” - MR Carey (Audiobook)This is, I believe, the third year in a row in which I have read a book by Carey, who came up as an outstanding comic book writer. “Boy” exists in the same world as Carey’s 2014 novel “The Girl with All The Gifts” (which I HIGHLY recommend) and proves a worthy successor. Carey has a way of conveying dark, heavy material in a sort-of detached manner that keeps the bleakness of his world from weighing down and bumming out the reader, which I greatly appreciate.

19. “The Dry” - Jane Harper (Audiobook)Far and away the best mystery/thriller I read this year and one that actually kept me in suspense up until the final fourth or so. I dug the setting, I thought the mystery element was both mysterious and interesting, and the reader for the audiobook was excellent. Perhaps a bit predictable in the end but the conclusion was still satisfying in spite of that fact.

VERY GOOD BOOKS18. “The Princess Diarist” - Carrie Fisher (Audiobook)I had gone back and forth on whether or not I was going to read “The Princess Diarist”, heartbroken as I was over the loss of American Treasure Carrie Fisher and not one for celebrity relationship tell-alls/gossip/what have you. But a listener recommended and sold me on the audiobook (which was read by Fisher before her death) and I’m glad I bought in because Carrie Fisher was a wholly unique gem and her writing was always her greatest skill. Even when the story drifted into territory I didn’t necessarily care about (and it often did, frankly), Fisher’s self-deprecating wit and her magnificent voice kept me totally engaged.

17. “Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back)” - Jeff Tweedy (Audiobook)Turns out I only read two music-related books this year despite my historical predilection to the genre. I’ve always loved Wilco and Tweedy is a fascinating figure to me, stuck somewhere between a surly, 70’s rock-star and a sensitive modern rock-star. “Let’s Go” has grown on me since I read it in the fall, and I’ve come to appreciate some of the aspects I was unsure of during the reading. Plus, I love when a writer reads his/her own book, especially when it’s non-fiction, and Tweedy as the reader here was a serious bonus.

16. “Norse Mythology” - Neil Gaiman (Audiobook)Something I discovered about myself while reading “Norse”: I have more of an appreciation for mythology (Norse, Greek, or otherwise) than I actually care about mythology. Through the course of this book, I kept finding myself tuning out or choosing to listen to something else entirely despite A.) How INCREDIBLY well-written this book is, B.) How much I LOVE Neil Gaiman, and C.) How much I SUUUUPPPPERRRR love Neil Gaiman’s voice (*Heart eye emoji*). Somewhere along the line, I realized my disconnect with the book was due exclusively to my internal “meh” to classic mythology in general and I had peace.

15. “The Girl Who Drank the Moon” - Kelly Barnhill (Audiobook)Just about every person in the civilized world has some familiarity and/or appreciation for fairy tales and thus, it’s a genre that receives a lot of attention in literary and film form. What I loved about Barnhill’s approach here is instead of trying to write a “modern fairy tale” or a “play on a fairy tale”, she just wrote a fairy tale! No modern twist, no attempt at being edgy, she just wrote a very good, vibrant, classically-inspired fairy tale and the result is a smashing success in my estimation.

14. “Brilliance” - Marcus Sakey (Audiobook)As with “Renegades”, I purchased “Brilliance” having no idea it was the first chapter in a series (it’s possible I’m not paying enough attention to my book choices). Unlike “Renegades”, there is no question regarding my interest in carrying on with this series in the future. “Brilliance” borrows from a bevy of similar books and graphic novels that came before it but Sakey’s characters are quite strong and they carry the book through any potential dips in the originality of the story. I expect I’ll finish out this trilogy in the coming year.

13. “Shoe Dog” - Phil Knight (Audiobook)Recently, a gentleman in a fine dining establishment questioned my political leanings based on the pair of Nikes I was wearing. I can only imagine how angry that person would be if I saw how highly I rated this book. Mostly memoir with a sliver of business strategy worked in, I found “Shoe Dog” riveting from start to finish. My one complaint is the book cuts off in the early 80’s before Nike became NIKE and, frankly, there’s a lot more Knight could’ve gotten into and I wish he had.

12. “Difficult Men” - Brett Martin (Book)Another one that’s been sitting on my shelf for years, “Difficult Men” delved into the first run of Peak TV programming (The Sopranos, The Wire, The Shield, Deadwood, etc.), the lead characters therein, and the showrunners/creators who brought them to screen. Martin did so with sufficient depth and through the lens of an auteur, letting each man speak for himself rather than interjecting too much in the way of his own personal biases/preference. In doing so, he gives the reader some great insight into each of their respective processes as well as a good sense of who is and is not someone with which you might ever want to hang.

GREAT BOOKS11. “The Graveyard Book” - Neil Gaiman (Audiobook)This was my first book of the year which is ironic given that it had been sitting in my Audible unlistened to for at least two full years, maybe three. I mentioned my love for Neil Gaiman earlier and while “Graveyard” is purposefully slighter than some of his grander world building efforts (“Neverwhere” and “American Gods”), it is no less enjoyable or clever. He is a master of story and there is an ease with which his tales float off the page (or off the earbud, as it were) that is almost unmatched. And, again, Gaiman’s voice alone is worth the price of a download here.

10. “The Chris Farley Show” - Tom Farley (Audiobook)Not the easiest read I took on this year but I’m glad I did. I adored Chris Farley as a youth and I continue to adore the memory of him as a soon-to-be decrepit old man. The oral history format utilized here serves the material very well and gives everyone who had a part in Farley’s life, from high school on up to his untimely death, a chance to be accounted for in their own words. I laughed remembering some of my favorite Farley bits and cried during some of the tougher spots (not always easy to explain to your child why you’re crying while doing the dishes, but he’s pretty much used to it by now). This is a really well-structured book that fully encapsulates its subject’s many highs and devastating lows.

9. “Everybody Always” - Bob Goff (Audiobook and Book)Bob is hero of mine and one of the most genuine people you could ever hope to meet. His enthusiasm for life and his fellow human beings is unbelievably infectious and that jumps off every single page of “Everybody Always.” Bob’s first book, “Love Does”, got all kinds of press a couple years ago and rightly so but I actually think this book does a better job of inspiring the reader than his previous effort did.

8. “Basketball (And Other Things)” - Shea Serrano (Book)I was in the middle of “BAOT” when 2017 came to a close so I carried it over to the New Year and enjoyed every page along the way. I have a bookcase full of sports books and while there are better “basketball books” than this (books that tell an important story or rank the best players in NBA history or follow a team through a significant season or whatever), I’m not sure there are many better “books about basketball”. David Halberstam’s aforementioned “The Breaks of the Game” may very be the greatest basketball book ever written but does it have chapters titled, “If 1997 Karl Malone and a Bear Swapped Places for a Season, Who Would Be More Successful?” (the bear, for sure) or “If You Could Dunk on Any One Person, Who Would It Be?” (Miles Teller, obviously)? No, Halberstam did not write those chapters so, point Serrano.

7. “The Book of Lost Things” - John Connolly (Audiobook)If I may be honest, I love Audible’s various sales throughout the year but often times, the books I’m able to pick up in these circumstances end up cluttering the back half of my year-end list. (See: numbers 45, 42, 41, 40, and more.) This was the outlier in 2018, a book I picked somewhat half-heartedly and ended up loving. Connolly’s book has touches of “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” with a hint of Gaiman mixed in to make it darker and more epic than both. “Lost Things” is an excellent read that may end up on the elusive re-read list someday in the future.

6. “Conference Room, Five Minutes” - Shea Serrano (eBook)Pretty bangin’ year for Serrano, assuming he is as pumped to be featured on this very important list as I imagine he is. “Five Minutes” combines two things that I love: pop-culture essays and The Office and the result could not have been more glorious. Any book that begins with a Stanley Hudson “Shove it up your butt” joke jumps straight past “good” and immediately becomes “great” in my view. Also, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to the person sitting next to me on my flight from Dallas to Phoenix this summer who had to witness me try so hard not to LOL that I ultimately began choking after reading said Stanley Hudson joke.

5. “The Name of the Wind” - Patrick Rothfuss (Audiobook)There are nerds and then there are high fantasy nerds. I’ve often been the former but never really the latter as I’ve typically kept my reading to the shallow end of the fantasy pool. For example, I did not read “Game of Thrones”until after the show began and I’ve never picked up a Terry Brooks tome. This was something different for me, then, and I highly enjoyed this reading. Rothfuss’ worldbuilding (probably the last time I’ll use that term for this list, sorry) is exquisite and his connection to his lead characters is evident from the very early stages of the book. “Wind” is also a little more accessible than other high fantasy novels I’ve picked up over the years; it’s not Rowling-accessible, mind you, but perhaps Tolkein-accessible and that’s enough for this nerd.

4. “X” - Chuck Klosterman (eBook)Klosterman is one of my very favorite authors and I tend to gravitate toward his essays more than his book-length work. I’d put off reading “X” for over a year because I thought of it as a sort-of greatest hits album and assumed I’d read most, or all, of the works collected therein. Well, number one, I was wrong; there were plenty of entries in this collection that I’d never read before. And number two, even those that I had read were just as interesting and engrossing the second time around as they were in their respective original formats. Klosterman’s unique questions and thought process surrounding virtually any subject he approaches makes even the most common celebrity interview, usually a total tune-out for me, a must-read.

3. “Children of Time” - Adrian Tchaikovsky (Audiobook)I continue to think of sci-fi as my favorite genre (at least on the fiction side of things) but I am often disappointed or nonplussed by the sci-fi I read. While I quite enjoyed “Brilliance”, “The Fold”, and others, “Children of Time” was the big winner in the sci-fi category this year and likely would remain at the top in most years. It’s a complex story told in three parts spanning across space and time and yet, Tchaikovsky is able to not only hold the reader’s attention rapt, he keeps the book on track, never letting it get lost in its own complexities. It’s dense sci-fi, to be sure, but it’s dense because the story calls for it, not just for the sake of being dense. So, while I can’t say it’s an easy read, it is a supremely good read that is just as strong in execution as it is in concept.

2. “Hi, Bob!” - Bob Newhart (Audiobook)Seeing as how I am a living human being who has a heart, I love American Treasure Bob Newhart and I value his influence on comedy as highly as any other contributor of the last 50 years. “Hi, Bob!” is a short, easy listen (it is only available via audiobook) that plays more like a longform podcast than anything else and allows him the opportunity to talk to other very funny people (Will Ferrell, Lisa Kudrow, Conan O’Brien, etc.) about comedy, life, and everything in between. The reverence that each comedian has for Newhart is palpable, but these are real conversations between peers and the dynamic works so beautifully.

1. “Hits and Misses” - Simon Rich (eBook)My favorite read of the year by leaps and bounds. Rich is an actual, literal, comedic genius who has authored some of the funniest short and longform stories (not to mention scripts) of the last decade. But “Hits and Misses” is his masterpiece. Every story in this collection is a good one but the peaks are absolutely brilliant and truly hilarious. I’m not a particularly fast reader as most of my actual “eyes on page/screen” reading comes late at night after everything else is done and I’ve usually only got a few minutes to spare. But I read “Hits and Misses” in two, maybe three sittings total, including once when I tried to read in bed while Lindsey slept and ultimately resulted in my leaving the room because I couldn’t stop cackling out loud. I know I can be prone to hyperbole, but I genuinely cannot remember ever laughing as hard and as frequently while reading a book as I did with “Hits and Misses” and I imagine I will revisit the better stories many times again in the future.

I, like probably three billion people worldwide, have plantar fasciitis. This is not a surprise given how much I am on my feet, how much basketball I have played (poorly) in my life, and how little care I have given to rest and rehabilitation after the various injuries that pop up as a result of said poorly played basketball. One day, I woke up and my foot hurt. The next day, I woke up and my foot was immobile. The day after that, I woke up and went to the doctor and told the doctor, “I think I have plantar fasciitis” and he said, “Yes, you definitely have plantar fasciitis.” And that was that.

The impact of this supremely lame and extremely common diagnosis on my life is twofold.

One, I had to get rid of a lot of my sneakers. I love sneakers; if I was wealthy, I would be one of those people who has a closet full of sneakers displayed on lighted racks. But many of my sneakers didn’t fit right post-diagnosis or did not take to the inserts I have to wear in my shoes at all times now, so they were sold or given away or thrown away, each loss requiring a small funeral-like ceremony. I guess my ability to walk when I am 50 is worth giving up my favorite pair of Nikes but it’s a closer call than you might think.

The second change in my life is that I now wear my shoes pretty much all of the time. The combination of my stupid plantar fasciitis and the terrible laminate floors we currently have in our house leaves me limping if I walk around without shoes for very long. I cannot fix my feet without surgery and we do not own this house so I cannot change the flooring and, thus, if I am not in bed or in the shower, I have my shoes on. Again, this is a very minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things (or even the not-grand scheme of things, really), just a thing I have to deal with like everyone has things that they just have to deal with, until hopefully someday I can afford robot feet.

But, because my son notices everything, he makes note of my shoe wearing with great regularity. When I put my shoes on (or change from one pair to another as I do frequently to alleviate pressure points), he is consistently very quick to ask me if I’m going somewhere. “No, buddy, just doing the dishes and need my shoes on” or “Nah, pal, my feet just hurt.” Sometimes I plop down on the couch next to him with my shoes up on the coffee table and he immediately points them out like, “Dad, your shoes are still on.” “I know, dude, but I gotta do something in a bit, I just want to sit with you for a few minutes.”

For a while, this struck him as sheer lunacy. Coop is one of the world’s great loungers. When he gets home from school, he changes into athletic shorts the second he walks in the door. He has always been very quick to assemble “comfy” spaces for himself at the expense of anyone else in the house, building “hideouts” out of every pillow and couch cushion we will let him use. To him, the idea of keeping your shoes on when you’re not up running around borders on sacrilege. He’s almost offended that I would dare sit near his newest hideout without having the decency to take off my shoes.

Recently, though, on a lazy Saturday or Sunday, I started putting my shoes on in order to do some chores or whatever and noticed that he was putting his sneakers on as well.

“Hey man,” I said, smiling over at him. “We’re not going anywhere. You can keep chilling. I’ve got some cleaning to do is all.”

“I know,” he replied as he went about the business of putting on his socks and shoes.

“Why’re you putting your shoes on, then?”

“I just want to be like you.”

There are few phrases and sentences that will stop you short, that will warm your heart, that will make you take pride in what you’re doing quite like that one. My favorite video of Cooper is from the morning after the Force Awakens trailer dropped and I got to wake up my kid into a world that offered him new Star Wars and recorded his reaction to the trailer. But my second favorite video ever (and, I must say, there are a LOT of great Cooper videos because this kid rules) is one Lindsey shot over our post-church lunch a couple years ago wherein Coop tells me when he grows up, he wants to be a coach “just like you” and suggests that maybe we should coach together. When I am feeling like not the greatest parent (often! Because parenting is hard!), I watch that video because it reminds me that at least on some level, I am doing some things right. Coop doesn’t really care about sports, not yet, and maybe not ever, so I know that his desire to coach (however fleeting it may end up being) has very little to do with his love for the game and very much to do with his love for me.

For the next few hours, I worked around the house on various chores, projects, organizations, and re-organizations and Cooper did not. He did not clean or work on a project or re-organize a shelf. He sat, and he watched TV, and he played with toys and a few times he moved from one hideout location to another. But he kept his shoes on because he just wanted to be like me.

There’s an episode of Boy Meets World where Cory is upset (as he often was) that he doesn’t have any special skills or abilities and accuses his father of letting him down. “I’m average because you’re average,” he charges Alan (the greatest TV dad of all-time, by the way). The focus of the episode is about Cory coming to grips with his lack of self-confidence and learning to appreciate his father. But I’ve always thought the real strength of the episode comes from Alan who, while hurt by his son’s lack of respect, acknowledges that coming from where he came from, “if my son thinks average is nothing then I’ve done my job.”

And that’s me to a t. I’m so happy and proud that my son and I are best buddies, that he wants to be like me so badly that he’ll spend three hours wearing shoes inside his sacrosanct hideout just so we match. But I don’t want him to stop there. I want him to take some of the things he will have hopefully learned from me (work ethic, loyalty, “humor”, etc.) and apply it to himself in ways I have never been able to manage; that he will be more patient than I am, that he will be kinder than me, that he will find direction sooner than I did, that he will be more successful than me (in whatever form that shows itself), etc. I want him to be better than me and if someday that means he stops wanting to be like me because he’s already surpassed me, if he sees me as the crude model on which he built his much stronger, better self, then I believe I will have done my job.

In the months before my son was born, my friend, Tobin, was going through a divorce and needed a place to crash. So he crashed with us and every other week, so did his four-year-old son, Jude. We loved having them around and it was good training for parenthood. I’m not “Walk around the house naked guy” or “Yell obscenities at every hour of the night guy” but obviously it’s a big transition going from “no kids” to “one or more kids” in your house and Jude gave us (read: “me”) a sort-of trial run on having a kid around the house who didn’t go somewhere else at the end of the evening.

Jude had a lot of energy (duh) but he was also content being the only kid in the midst of a group of adults and was great at disappearing into his own thing, whether it was an iPad or toys or even a book, when the occasion called for it. I learned a lot about having your kids around other adults in settings that were not specifically geared toward kids and Lindsey and I have carried that forward with Cooper. I think it’s important, on a number of levels, that he learns how to interact with his elders and I’m not sure that would have been such an immediate priority for me had I not sat in a room with 10 adults, and one four-year-old, dozens of times over those pre-Cooper months.

In this setting, Jude would kinda tune out and leave the adults to our nonsense with the very pointed, incredibly consistent exception on one very specific thing: No matter what he was doing, where he was in the house, or how quietly you spoke, if you said the word “stupid”, he would immediately perk up and chide you. “Don’t say stupid,” he’d say, eyes darting up just long enough to make it clear that he was not messing around. You could say LITERALLY any other word and he’d go on with whatever he was doing unphased; you could mock his dad mercilessly (a favorite pastime of mine), you could blare Kanye, you could deliver a perfect reading of the first 20 minutes of The Departed, everything else was on the table. But if you said “stupid” you would HEAR ABOUT IT without fail. It got to the point where if someone did utter the magic “s” word, his face would sink and the rest of us would glance over at Jude, waiting for his rebuke. He never let us down and I still give Tobin grief about it to this day.

I am now reaping the karmic rewards of that which I have sown.

Cooper is a super observant kid. From an early age, you could tell he was taking everything in and processing whatever was happening around him. And he never forgets anything (except how to put away his dirty clothes). He listens to what we say and we try very, very hard to include him in conversation, ask him questions, and engage him in what we’re doing and usually he goes right along with it. The general exception to this is the car. When we’re in the car, there are things he pays attention to and notices, but it’s usually tied more to routine and landmarks. If I take a different route home from my parent’s house, he’ll ask why we didn’t turn where we usually do and if we happen to pass a random building that he’s seen before, he’ll comment on how this is near something or some place that he visited once some months or years previously. But for the most part, in the car, he kinda tunes us out unless we’re specifically engaging him. And even then, he’s prone to saying, “I don’t want to talk right now” and returning his gaze to the window. I respect it.

Recently, though, he let us in on his big secret. Lindsey and I were talking about something (I don’t remember the specifics; work, friends, family, my grief over the impending end of Dirk Nowitzki’s playing career, whatever, take your pick) and Cooper asked, “What does that mean?” I glanced back at him and asked if he was listening to our conversation. His reply chilled me to my bones.

“I hear EVERYTHING,” he said somewhat emphatically.

“Are you telling me you’re just sitting back there all quiet listening to everything we say?” I asked, half-amused and half-thinking-back-on-everything-I-had-said-in-the-last-15-minutes.

“Yes. I always do that. I. Hear. Ev. Er. Y. Thing.”

He smiled at me in a manner that suggested he knew EXACTLY what kind of bombshell he’d just dropped on us then went back to staring at the window, a satisfactory grin on his little gremlin face. Meanwhile, Lindsey and I shrugged nervously at each other, “Welp, can’t put that genie back in the bottle.” And look, it’s not like we’re throwing around f-bombs or trashing our friends behind their backs (I usually just trash them to their faces) or whatever else might be truly damaging to a child. We both worked with kids for years before we ever had our own and anyway, we tend to keep things pretty mild in our conversations regardless of the presence of tiny ears. But still, we thought the car was a safe place given how completely zoned out this kid has consistently been for the bulk of his life and lo and behold, we were playing right into his hands.

So, if you hear our kid calling someone a moron in traffic (me) or ranting about the menu changes at Taco Bueno (Lindsey) or marveling at the sheer stupidity of the DC Extended Universe (me) or saying one of those words that’s not really, exactly a curse word per se but definitely isn’t a mom-friendly-word (me again), that’s our bad. Just know that we didn’t know he “hears EVERYTHING” until just this second and we’ll try to better in the future.

Kids are creepy. Okay, maybe I should say, kids say creepy stuff. Really creepy stuff. We love the kids that say the creepy stuff. But still, the creepy stuff they say sticks with us. I’m around a lot of kids and I have heard a lot of creepy stuff over the years. Whether it’s Coop, a friend’s kid, a kid at work, or the occasional random stranger kid who just seems to appear out of nowhere in a store aisle, says something weird, then disappears, leaving you to wonder if you have just seen a ghost, I have found the creepy stuff they say usually results in one of four reactions. These reactions are illustrated by the following gifs, each reaction escalating in seriousness.

1. THE “WAIT, WUUUTTT??”A friend of ours has a child who, as the family drove past a power line that was lined with black birds, shoulder to shoulder, calmly called out the number of birds in sight. Like, he very casually said, “Yeah there’s 673 birds up there” and less in a Rain Man way than in a way that suggested he had trackers on all of the birds and kept a tally in his journal at home. It was weird.

2. THE “SILENT BLINK”Recently, as we walked into a Target together, I noticed Cooper was extending his hand toward every bird we passed in the parking lot and making a sort of “whooshing” sound. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, simply, and matter-of-factly as if this was a very normal thing to do and say, “I have them now.” Wait, what? “I have them now,” he repeated. And then he smiled, and we proceeded into Target. So…I guess my son has the ability to pull the souls out of Parking Lot Birds and I’m not sure what to do about that. If you have any advice on this, please let me know.

3. THE “DISCOMBOBULATED HOLD UP, WHAT NOW?”When Cooper was younger, he would occasionally say that he had been to a place he had never been to. We’d be driving by a random location and he’d say, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been to that park before” or, “That’s the McDonald’s I went to last week.” We’d argue with him a bit but he was adamant about these supposed experiences and finally, after some extensive prodding, he revealed to us that he had been to these locations with “Schmike”, who, we think (I should stress the “think” part of this because who knows really?) was an imaginary friend. The creepy part was the Schmike only visited at night when Cooper was already in bed and he has some facial deformity that Cooper was vague about and, oh yeah, I forgot, sometimes they VISITED A GRAVEYARD WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?

4. THE “SCREAM AND DIE”Before we had a child, we spent a lot of time with our friend’s kids and one set of kids in particular. At some point, one of these children began talking about “Ty Thomas” who, like Schmike, we assumed was an imaginary friend. There were only two real differences between Ty Thomas and Schmike:

A.) This kid would commune with Ty Thomas at any point during the day or night, sometimes stopping while playing to wave at Ty Thomas who was apparently JUST HANGING OUT IN THE CORNER OF THE ROOM WHILE WE ALL ATE;B.) We found out after a while that Ty Thomas was the name of a child who previously lived in the neighborhood…UNTIL HE DIED!!! There’s nothing that will stop down a friendly game night quicker than a child waving to a DEAD CHILD that only he can see and also, I’m pretty sure Ty Thomas is still with us and will be haunting us for the rest of our days.

So, here’s to all the creepy kids and the creepy things they say that keep us on our toes and up at night, unable to sleep for fear of Ty Thomas’ retribution. You’re the worst, kids.

Venom opens in theaters worldwide today and I, for one, am incredibly excited to see it. Just kidding, this movie features the worst trailer I have ever seen with my own two eyes and I’m questioning my existence as a movie podcaster, knowing that I’ll soon have to watch this movie. Even still, 2018 is a big year for the Spider-Man Cinematic Universe, what with Infinity War, Venom, and the December release of Into the Spider-Verse. Spidey is a big player in my house as my son fluctuates from day to day between wanting to be Spider-Man and wanting to be Black Panther. (I’d rather him be something like Engineer Man or Accountant Man or just “Isn’t Crippled by Student Debt Man” but so it goes.) He watches the various Spider-Man movies quite frequently and as such, I have become an expert on this disjointed series both willingly (Homecoming) and unwillingly (Spider-Man 3 which will very likely be the death of me). With Venom now upon us, let’s have a look at the nine villains that have propagated the Spidey Verse thus far.

10. The Rhino, The Amazing Spider-Man 29. Green Goblin, The Amazing Spider-Man 2You may be saying, “How could the AM2 villains POSSIBLY be any worse than the various villains Spider-Man 3 brought to the table, you cretin?” And you might be right, honestly, except that I have seen Amazing 2 a half-dozen times (thanks, Cooper) and when I IMDB’d this movie to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything, I discovered that I had, in fact, completely and totally forgotten that BOTH OF THESE VILLAINS WERE EVEN IN THE MOVIE!!! In my book, it is worse to be completely and totally forgettable as a villain than it is to be outright bad. (My book is called, “Very Weird Takes About Movie Villains.” A NYT bestseller, to be sure.) I’m also docking points for Dane DeHaan playing Green Goblin instead of Hobgoblin as he should have been. You can’t just change which Osborn is which Goblin without me taking notice, Marc Webb.

8. Venom/The Alien Simbiote, Spider-Man 37. Sandman, Spider-Man 36. Hobgoblin, Spider-Man 3Woof. One of the greatest disappointments in blockbuster movie history, there are a ton of reasons why SM3 failed miserably beyond just the villains (the jazz club scene alone probably could’ve sunk Citizen Kane). But the villains certainly didn’t help. For one thing, three villains is way too many villains (a lesson that Amazing Spider-Man 2 did NOT learn despite how hard my brain apparently tried to erase this fact); maybe you can do the Villain Ensemble thing but it’s always iffy and in this case, all three villains were supposed to be established as their own characters, not a cohesive, villainous whole. Beyond this overstuffing, however, the real issue is all three of these characters suck. Harry Osbourne/Hobgoblin perpetually streaks across the screen like the worst PS2 video game creation of all-time, Sandman is hamstrung by a pathetically pandering backstory (not to mention Thomas Hayden Church’s big bag of nothing), and the simbiote’s big move is to make Tobey Maguire play jazz piano poorly.

5. Electro, The Amazing Spider-Man 2To be frank, Electro lands here more by default than anything else. He’s an odd character, his backstory is odd, and Jamie Foxx’s portrayal is odder still. If I were given five minutes with Mr. Foxx, I’d like to tell you I’d appropriately ask him what he was going for here and dig into the genesis of character interpretation and stuff but really I’d just spend the entire five minutes ranting about how he showed up at the Mavs’ championship parade in 2011 then also at the Miami championship parade in 2012. “Did you really think you could get away with this, Jamie?! NOTHING GETS BY ME, JAMIE!!!” Dallas Mavericks digression aside, this is a very mediocre, forgettable villain in a very mediocre, forgettable move but at least the character looked cool in its mediocrity.

4. The Lizard, The Amazing Spider-ManIn hindsight, The Lizard is a relatively obscure villain with which to relaunch a franchise that the average moviegoer didn’t even realize needed to be relaunched. Sony’s blundering efforts to transition from the Maguire Spider-Man films to the Garfield Spider-Man films was a mess and yet, the villain stands out as a high point. Rhys Ifans’ performance in the Dr. Jekyll side of this character is interesting and more nuanced than you might expect. Meanwhile, the scale of the CGI of the Mr. Hyde side of the equation makes for a competent rival for Spidey that verges on effectively creepy in certain spots. There’s a lot I don’t care for within Sam Raimi’s film sensibilities, but I think his horror background would’ve served this character well had he been in the director’s chair. Still, this is a good villain who for large stretches outshines the protagonist.

3. Green Goblin, Spider-ManThere are two parts to the Green Goblin equation: The action sequences which were neutered by Raimi’s dedication to camp and look horrendous in 2018 and Willem Dafoe’s equally campy but somehow extremely effective performance. I am genuinely weirded out by Willem Dafoe but he can be a very good actor in the right situations and this is one of those situations. The movie itself might hold up better with a different, subtler, less creepy actor in this role (like, say, virtually anyone) but as it pertains specifically to this character in a vacuum, Dafoe is excellent jumping across the Schizophrenic divide between the respective buttoned-up business man and stark raving mad lunatic sides of Norman Osborn.

2. Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man 2Doc Ock popped up at the very beginning of the comic book movie surge and remains one of the real peaks amongst the superhero movie villain mountain range. Whereas Dafoe’s over-the-top campiness (and its fit to Raimi’s themes) are what made Green Goblin work, it is the exact opposite here: Alfred Molina delivered a grounded performance with only a hint of madness and that, combined with the fantastic effects that gave life to the mechanical limbs, makes Doc Ock pop off the screen. Molina leans slightly against the currents of Raimi’s worst tendencies and the result is a compelling villain, not to mention a movie that holds up significantly better than most of the action movies of the era. He’s a great foe for Spider-Man and gives Spider-Man 2 the weight that both of its surrounding movies in the franchise lacked.

1. Vulture, Spider-Man: HomecomingThis was one of my favorite performances of 2017 and I think it will stand the test of time in regard to its place in the Superhero Movie Villain Pantheon. We’ve seen the “Everyman” trope applied to heroes many times but it’s rare for a villain to get that treatment (at least in superhero movies) and Keaton was the PERFECT casting choice. Vulture is intelligent, determined, and principled and that makes him a terrifying opponent for a grounded superhero like Homecoming’s Spider-Man. Keaton’s gritty approach adds real, tangible substance to the character. He’s not crazy, he’s not out to rule the world, he’s not even evil; he’s just a family man working to provide for his family, which is exactly why he’s dangerous. This is great character design taken to new heights by the performer, a brilliant pairing that should serve as the example for all superhero movies to come.

Note: We are speaking here today about pilots in terms of, “the premier episode of a TV series” and not just the best TV characters who also flew planes/helicopters. If I was concerned with the latter instead of the former, it would just be Tim Daly and Steven Weber from Wings, tied, ten times.

Also Note: There are spoilers herein. You’ve been warned.

This week marks the unofficial-official beginning of Fall TV Pilot Season. The various cable and streaming channels/services have, of course, gotten a head start on the networks with shows like Disenchantment, Jack Ryan, and Mayans MC having already dropped but this week, the Big Four and a Half (as I am proposing they should be called since The CW still doesn’t quite count, I think we can all agree) started putting their new wares on display. As has become the norm, this season is relatively grim, although I will give the networks credit for greenlighting fewer shows that appear to be truly horrific and settling instead for only marginally mediocre fare. Still, the fall’s slate isn’t very inspiring and has me pining for better days and considering the best pilots I have seen in my years of studious TV watching. Thus, a list of said best pilots because, after all, I do love a list.

I have long been fascinated by the pilot process and I think there are four qualifiers for what set the very best pilots apart from the rest. A great pilot must:

1. Be of the highest quality in its own right. Bad or mediocre pilots that spawned great shows will not be considered (see: Star Trek the Next Generation);2. Establish tone, plot, and/or storyline of the show that is to come;3. Give a strong introduction to the main characters who will dominate the series henceforth;4. Represent a show that lives up to the promise of the pilot (within reason).

We’re only talking about hour-long shows here, no sitcoms/half-hour dramas as these are completely different mediums that deserve their own conversations. So, say goodbye to Modern Family, Arrested Development, and other sitcom favorites with great pilots. Likewise, I’ve only included shows I have seen all (or the vast majority) of as it would be foolish to speak to or against the merits of a show I know little about. This list includes The Wire, West Wing, Six Feet Under, and a host of others I’m sure I should have seen by now. (I’d say I’m sorry but, y’all, there is SO MUCH television out there, what do you want from me?!) A few great pilots or pilots of great shows that missed the boat here because of one qualifier or another: Homeland, The Walking Dead, The X-Files, Fringe, Heroes, and, perhaps most devastating to me personally, Studio 60, an incredible pilot that unfortunately wrote a check the resulting show could never cash. I also tossed out Battlestar Galactica, because its “pilot” is really a three-hour miniseries which isn’t a fair comparison to the rest of these shows, and Firefly, because its pilot wasn’t actually the pilot that viewers saw and the episode that served as the pilot is probably the worst episode of the truncated series. These all feel like relevant qualifiers to me but I’m sure many of you will be angry about these exclusions and I accept your judgment.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Stranger Things (“The Vanishing of Will Byers”), Deadwood (“Deadwood”), Game of Thrones (“Winter is Coming”)All of these episodes had a spot in my top ten at one point or another before succumbing to the strength of those listed. I love them all, however; they are all excellent pilots that follow the above rules quite well. “Winter is Coming” gets extra credit for being the flashpoint for virtually everything that has happened in the Game of Thrones universe, quite a feat given the sheer number of characters, storylines, and insanity within the show. If I had to present an argument as to why I excluded each of these from the final list, I would say “Winter is Coming” is only a so-so episode of Game of Thrones in its own right, “The Vanishing of Will Byers” is a little too concerned with the “Mystery Box” element of its narrative, and Deadwood takes about three episodes to truly establish the world in which it inhabits so “Deadwood” is more like the first portion of an extended pilot in my view. These are small complaints about shows that, again, I really dig but they’re enough to bump them off the top ten list proper.

10. Justified, “Fire in the Hole” Of all the pilots listed here, I think this one is by far the weakest in its own right (a good episode, not great) and in fact, I excluded it in most of my early drafts. But as I considered my must haves for a great pilot, “Fire in the Hole” scored high in terms of setting the tone for what was to come while also giving us a substantive taste of our two main characters, Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder. Indeed, one of the very first lines spoken by Raylan regarding Boyd, “We dug coal together”, became a consistent theme for the next six seasons and serves as the final words spoken in the finale. That kind of symmetry is too much for me to pass up, especially considering how great this show turned out to be after its first season.

9. 24, “12:00 am-1:00 am”The legacy of 24 is difficult to contextualize in 2018 but in the moment, it was a show unlike any other and the pilot set the events that followed over the next nine years into motion with rapid fire speed. 24 is, I think, the first network TV show to hint at the Prestige TV era that was to come and served a multi-generational audience with a wholly unique, pulse-pounding thrill ride with every single episode. This pilot serves as one of those, “Where were you when…” pop culture moments and that ticking clock was all anyone could talk about in the days following the premier. There are many, many, episodes of 24 that are better than this one, but the experience of this particular hour sets it apart in my mind.

8. Pushing Daisies, “Pie-lette”Oh, what could have been. The WGA strike in 2007 claimed a handful of TV and movie victims but for my money, there is no greater loss than Pushing Daisies. This is a beautiful, quirky, expertly crafted pilot that sets the tone exquisitely, no small feat considering the very odd subject matter. To this day, it stands as the prime example of how to set up an off-beat series and I only wish the show would’ve been given the room to build upon the promise it showed in its truncated first season. You deserved better, Pushing Daisies.

7. Breaking Bad, “Pilot”A small confession: while I fully grasp the greatness and significance of Breaking Bad, I think its first ten episodes or so fall somewhere between “average” and “good.” Somewhere in the second season, Vince Gilligan found the right gear and the show never lost its pace again but the first season in particular is a bit of a slog for me. The pilot, though, is an outlier, a gripping hour of television that sets the wheels turning on the next 61 episodes of the show many consider the best of all-time. This episode worked in the moment but more importantly, it really works when you look back on it in the context of where the series ended up. I’m not completely sure Gilligan had the entire thing mapped out all along but regardless, when you re-watch this pilot now, you see the seeds of what would come to pass, especially in regard to Walter White, and the myth of his goodness.

6. The Shield, “Pilot”Over the years, whether due to its lack of streaming availability or the sheer number of white male anti-heroes we’ve encountered since it premiered in 2002, The Shield’s legacy has gotten overlooked. You rarely hear it discussed in the same glowing terms that most of its Early Prestige TV era luminaries receive if it’s even mentioned at all. I think is a massive mistake as The Shield had more influence on the next 15 years of television than any other show besides The Sopranos. This pilot lays the groundwork of what the series, and maybe more importantly, its main character (Vic Mackey), would be perfectly. In the closing moments, you get one of the greatest lines ever delivered on a TV drama (Vic, menacingly laying a phonebook in front of a smug child predator, saying, “Good cop and bad cop left for the day. I’m a different kind of cop.”) that makes you love Vic, followed immediately by the revelation that Vic is a cop-killer. The episode forces you to wrestle with the concepts of good and evil, a continuous theme throughout the following seasons, while telling you exactly who these characters really are at their core.

5. The Americans, “Pilot”Over its final season, The Americans solidified its place among the Prestige TV greats for anyone who previously held doubts about its legacy. (For the record, I’m not one of these people and for my money, this was the best show on television in a couple of stretches.) But the pilot itself remains criminally underrated, rarely breaking into the “best of” conversation despite its abject brilliance as a stand-alone hour of TV, not to mention the ways in which it sets up the show for the long haul. This structure of this episode is PERFECT, bringing you into the lives of two would-be villains (on paper, that is) then showing you both sides of their lives, topped off with an, ahem, effective use of “In the Air Tonight.” It is the final scene, however, that escalates the tension to the point of inducing a heart attack and sets the narrative of the next 75 episodes on its axis.

4. Friday Night Lights, “Pilot”I’m extremely in the bag for FNL given that I think it is the best network TV drama of all-time and also my son is named after one of the characters. But setting aside all biases, I can objectively tell you that FNL is the best network TV drama of a- okay, I might not be able to set aside said biases. The structure of this episode, directed by Peter Berg in one of his most-lucid periods, is utterly brilliant, described by Berg himself as taking the All-American Boy, building him up, and then breaking him. It’s a gut-wrenching, gripping hour of television that serves as a perfect example of what the show would be for the next five seasons. It introduces all the important characters with simplicity (the complexity comes later) and backing it up with what might be Coach Eric Taylor’s greatest words playing out over the final scenes. I’ve watched this pilot a dozen times and remain fascinated by its perfection.

3. Lost, “Pilot Parts 1 and 2”I’ve gone through a dozen stages of feelings with Lost over the years. On the one hand, it nearly (*insert David Caruso putting on sunglasses gif*) lost me multiple times, the finale is disappointing at best, and when you weigh the whole of the series altogether, I’m not sure it’s more than average overall. And yet, it was watercooler TV for six years, dominated my pre-Peak TV brain in a way no other show had before, and features some truly outstanding highs despite its immense level of difficulty. I think this episode, which premiered over two weeks in September 2004, is the best episode of the show which is both an incredible accomplishment and a major culprit in the disappointment that followed. JJ Abrams asked questions in the first two hours that never got answered satisfactorily but for a brief moment, the questions were enough to keep us totally enthralled and Lost was omnipresent culturally. To this day, this pilot remains the only one that I remember where I was and who I was with when I watched it and it is the first one that springs to mind when someone mentions TV pilots. There’s something special about that.

2. The Sopranos, “Pilot”The Godfather of Prestige TV (I am CERTAIN I am the first person to make this allusion, I should trademark this), this episode is routinely brought up in the “Best Pilots” conversation and yet it is somehow still underrated. There was no blueprint for what David Chase did with series at large (which is part of my argument for this being the best show of all-time) but that holds even more truth for the pilot. The best drama pilots ever up to this point were (in some order) Twin Peaks, NYPD Blue, and Hillstreet Blues but all of those episodes were built like Lost’s pilot, with the intent to offer a mystery (who killed Laura Palmer), a surprise twist (Officer Licalsi is a mob informant), or a cliffhanger (two police officers are left for dead) to entice viewers to come back the following week. This episode is quite the opposite: viewers tuning in expecting a violent mob drama were instead treated to a sulky, depressed, middle-management mob boss whose teenage daughter hates him and who is…obsessed with a family of ducks? The violence would come later in the series, to be sure, but instead of falling back on the more reliable tropes his viewers expected, Chase built the pilot entirely on the characters and their everyman troubles. It makes perfect sense in hindsight, seeing as how The Sopranos was always a slow burn rather than an action-thriller, but in the moment, it was an incredibly bold move and one that resulted in fantastic returns.

1. Mad Men, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”Without the blueprint left behind by The Sopranos, I don’t know that Mad Men exists, though this could be said (and has been) for a litany of Prestige TV shows. Mad Men, though, took that blueprint and, instead of trying to copy it (which many shows did), actually built upon it (which many fewer shows were successful at), even perfecting it. The pilot is no exception, a glorious hour of slow burn drama that sells the lie of Don Draper’s glamorous life as a top-flight ad executive and then hammers you with the revelation that, oh by the way, he’s a married family man whose entire existence is fraught with dishonesty. Essentially, Matthew Weiner took the Sopranos template and added a hook that, while not a traditional cliffhanger, is no less jarring. This revelation laid the foundation for much of what followed throughout Mad Men’s run: you saw Don’s conquests in the forefront but in the back of your mind, you were waiting for the other shoe to drop, for one of his myriad lies to be found out. Of course, that was the point, because that paranoia dominated Don’s life and, as much as any show before or after, Mad Men understood how to perfectly frame itself so that you always felt you were walking in the protagonist’s shoes. “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, then, is this brief, unknowing (to the viewer at the time, that is) respite from what is to come, allowing you to see Don as everyone else sees him, before you spend the next six years seeing him as he sees himself. It’s an exquisitely shot episode that provides immediate depth to both the characters and the settings and gives you incredible insight into all that is to come.

Cooper started Kindergarten this week. I have been simultaneously looking forward to and dreading this event for the last few months. On the one hand, it’s so exciting to watch him grow up and mature and develop his own personality and all that stuff. On the other, he doesn’t seem nearly old or big enough to be conscripted into the public-school system and, of course, this brings him one step closer to his inevitable betrayal of our “Best Buddies for Life” pact. Some day he won’t need me anymore and, in that moment, I’m sure I’ll look back on the years and think, “If only I would’ve kept him out of Kindergarten for another year or five. That’s where it all went wrong.”

But, since I did not hold him out of Kindergarten for a year or five, we have tried to embrace his new life phase with as much excitement and as little terror as possible. Some misty eyes? Sure. A few Ron Burgundy in a glass case of emotions freak outs? Maybe (definitely). But I’ve balanced it with a ton of encouragement, big smiles, and exaggerated enthusiasm for literally every single thing about Kindergarten, hoping he doesn’t pick up on my own intense uncertainty about this whole thing. Every morning, Lindsey or I walk him to school and every afternoon, one or both of us waits outside the Kindergarten wing to pick him up. It is on the walk home where we gather the most intelligence regarding the events of the day.

“Today we went to the gym.” (“Good. Goodness knows you need all the help you can get developing some semblance of athletic ability.”)

“We did music today!” (“Crap, we’re going to have to listen to you practice the recorder at some point, aren’t we?”)

I love this stuff for several reasons. One, we know almost nothing about what he’s doing on a daily basis. We know his teacher’s name, we know where his classroom is within the building, and we know when to drop him off and pick him up. That’s it. As a highly organized, schedule-intensive person, I would like to know more about what happens in his eight-hour school day. Two, I think establishing the habit now of catching up on what we’ve missed through the day (hopefully) leads to more open communication later in life. And three, it’s clear that the structure of Kindergarten is a bit tighter than Pre-K because this kid is DYING TO TALK when he gets out of class. In the Pre-K days, most of the time his response to what he did at school was, “I don’t remember” or, “It was good.” This week, he walked out every day talking at a speed (and sometimes decibel) that suggested he was full to the brim with the words and needed to get them all out before his little body exploded. No complaints here, though, I’m totally here for it.

On Wednesday, the post-school conversation skipped right past science and P.E. and straight into lunchroom scuttlebutt.

“DAD,” Cooper said, almost before I could ask him how his day was. “You will not believe this. There. Is. A. New. Lunchable. And it’s mini hotdogs!!!”

He virtually screamed this at me, completely overwhelmed with excitement that is usually reserved for receiving a new PJ Masks toy or meeting a new doggo. It was clear he’d been thinking about this for hours and couldn’t wait to tell someone, anyone. (Egotistically, I’d like to think he couldn’t wait to tell me about this new revelation but practically, I’m pretty sure he would’ve told the aforementioned new doggo if that was the first being he came in contact with once outside the Kindergarten Cone of Silence.) Then he sort-of chuckled to himself and shook his head as if to say, “Wow, the things these people think of, you know? Truly boggles the mind.” When we got home, he made his very loud announcement to Lindsey and, come to find out, he told my parents about it when he saw them as well. It’s entirely possible that he’s already set up his own blog just to tell people about the new Lunchable.

Now, it’s no surprise that the new Lunchable has touched such a nerve with my son. Lunchables make up an embarrassingly high percentage of his food intake. If you are what you eat, Coop is 80 percent pizza Lunchable, ten percent carrot, and ten percent milk. (I don’t know, guys, we’re doing things 20 percent right, okay?) I think Lunchables are disgusting; one time, Lindsey and I were in a checkout line behind two full-grown men buying approximately 50 Lunchables each and I’ve never felt sorrier for anyone in my life. Like, at least Hot Pockets are warm, you know? But to a kid (and maybe specifically my kid), there is no grander culinary treat than a Lunchable. So, while the idea of eating a hot dog Lunchable is so heinous as to cause me to wretch as I write this, I totally get where my dude is coming from.

I love Coop’s reaction to the Great Lunchable Discovery of 2018 for two reasons. One, he came home completely awestruck, like he’d stumbled upon this wonderous new world where someone actually thought to turn processed miscellaneous meat into a hearty kid lunch and he couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. He wasn’t demanding we run out and get him a crate of hot dog Lunchables, he was just so pumped that they existed. And two, the idea of one kid busting out a hot dog Lunchable at the lunch table and all the other kids losing their minds over it cracks me up. I imagine they all started jumping around like the player-spectators at the NBA Dunk Contest, one kid (definitely Cooper) yelled, “Whuuuuuuttt”, another kid passed out from the excitement… It’s an incredible visual and, while exaggerated, takes me back to my days in the elementary school lunchroom and the friendships formed over the original Lunchables and discussions about the cultural importance of Home Alone. I’m excited for Coop to experience these tiny events that matter little in the grand scheme of his life but are huge in the moment.

After a couple days of non-stop talk about the magical, mythical lunch treat, Lindsey and I both (without telling the other our plan) went out and found some mini hot dog Lunchables. On the way home from school, I talked up the “big surprise” waiting for him and by the time we actually got to present him with (the world’s worst) bounty of processed food, I thought for sure I’d overdone it and his reaction would be anticlimactic. But instead, he hoisted the yellow box over his head and yelled in triumph because, after all, how could anything be better than mini hot dog Lunchables?

In a few short hours, my tiny infant son, who only just yesterday, it seems, was barely able to crawl and talk and eat semi-solid food, will be headed to his first day of Kindergarten. As an extremely practical, reasonable human being, I have, of course, always known this day would be coming and currently know that, in the grand scheme of things, Kindergarten isn’t a world-altering big deal. His school is literally within throwing distance (okay, maybe throwing distance *before* shoulder surgery) of our house and at 3:25 every day, we can walk home together and he can tell me about the advanced math formulas and seven syllable words he mastered that day, and everything is going to be fine. He’s not going off to boarding school, although he did think Kindergarten was an “all-day-all-night” kind of thing until very recently. As an extremely emotional, possibly overly sensitive parent-and-best-buddy of an only child, I am an absolute mess and everything is definitely NOT going to be fine. He just seems so little, you guys.

When you have a baby (and by “have” I mean, “possess a small child for whom you have a legal responsibility” because, of course, Lindsey actually had the baby, though I was there for moral support and like…I don’t know, very meager coaching while attempting to not pass out?), everyone says stuff like, “Cherish it now, they grow up fast.” Literally everyone says this. And in that moment, sleep-deprived and hungry for some reason (?) and a little angry for no real reason other than the sleep deprivation and hunger, you’re like, “Yeah, sure, cool, can we hurry up and get through that, then, because I’m dying here and I’m looking forward to him just being able to talk to me like a real person so I can explain sleep to him.” And then suddenly he IS a real person capable of actual speech. And you’re like, “Whoa, that was quick, weren’t you pooping in a sack a few minutes ago?” And he’s all, “Get with the times, old man” as he hoverboards out of the room with his girlfriend!? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

My point is, it turns out “literally everyone” is right: these stupid kids really do grow up fast. My favorite thing about parenting in the early years was holding Cooper against my chest while he dozed; now, he weighs a thousand pounds and when he tried to put his head on my chest last week, I felt like I’d been Zidane’d and my sternum will never be the same. I have this video of him when he was maybe five months old, just babbling (loudly) for several minutes; now he’s a better conversationalist than I am, and he has all of the words (okay, not ALL of the words, this isn’t a Ron Swanson with a typewriter situation, but you know what I mean). You see these things changing in real time, sure, but they’re incremental and you’re distracted by the day-to-day parenting stuff. And then one day, Facebook pops up a picture from the “On This Day…” feature and you can’t believe how tiny that kid looks or how long ago that moment really was.

Now he’s five and I have to turn him over to the state (it’s possible that I don’t understand how Kindergarten works any better than he does). Lindsey and I have always made it a priority to bring others into Cooper’s upbringing because we know how valuable his community of family and friends will be in his development and because we know we need help, that we need breaks. We left him with my mother-in-law at maybe seven days old so we could go have dinner with our friends; he’s been in pre-school four days a week since he was four months old; he has a sea of blood-and-non-blood-related aunts and uncles who look after him constantly. But Kindergarten is the first time he'll be in the daily care of someone I don’t know; when I won’t be able to just show up and take him simply because I had a couple hours before the night’s practices started and I thought it might be cool if we got ice cream that day; when he can’t stick his head in my office on the way to the gym and sneak in a quick hug.

This unfamiliarity and the loss of those special moments that will undoubtedly be replaced with other special moments, I’m sure, lead to possibly absurd, but no less real, fearful questions. What if his teacher hates him? What if he doesn’t make friends? What if he hates school just because he has to wear a uniform and uniforms are stupid, especially for tiny Kindergarteners (I know I hate his school for this so it stands to reason that he will too, I think)? What if public school erodes his blissful ignorance as to how the world works when I’m not quite ready for him to learn those hard lessons?

What it all boils down to is the sense, the reality, that Kindergarten is one step closer to my impending irrelevancy. A tiny step, sure, but a step nonetheless. Today it’s Kindergarten, next week it’s adolescence when he might hate me, then the teenage years when he will definitely hate me, then college, then part-time adult, then full-time adult, and on and on. Right now, he needs me; someday, he won’t, not like he does now, anyway. Right now, he wants to be like me; someday, he’ll be better than me, at least I hope he will. Right now, he and I are best buddies; someday, it is likely that we will not be best buddies, and then, maybe, if I’m lucky, we’ll be best buddies again somewhere down the line. Those changes are unavoidable and inevitable and at the moment, Kindergarten feels like a battering ram ripping through the gates of “Brian and Cooper Are Best Buddies" Castle.

In my heart, I know the changes headed our way are good and I’m rooting SO HARD for him to triumph over the coming challenges, whether it’s making friends in Kindergarten or picking a college or raising a kid of his own (way, way, WAY down the line). Still, it’s hard in the moment. Recently, Cooper held my hand while we were watching TV, and I thought, “Pretty soon, he’s gonna be too cool for this.” And that’s good! It would be weird for a teenage boy to hold his dad’s hand while watching Black Panther! I have loved every single phase of Cooper’s life in his five years on this earth. I will love this phase as well and the next one and each that follows (possibly exempting the awful teenage years). But I’ll also mourn a bit for the passing of this phase and for the knowledge of the passings that are still to come, all the while reminding myself that he is ready, even if I am not.

I love Tom Cruise. This is not news to listeners of Mad About Movies, friends and family, or anyone who’s ever been near me on a mountaintop as I am prone to yelling about my affection from high places. Is Tom Cruise a humorless, crazy person in real life? Very likely. But does Tom Cruise, after more than 30 years in this business, still put on an amazing show that very rarely ends in abject disappointment and occasionally touches on greatness? You bet. He is the Roger Federer of action movies, a superstar whose powers should have diminished long ago but who has continued to dominate for so long that he has now outlasted the class of up-and-comers who came along to displace him. And, as I have noted numerous times, I love that Tom Cruise desperately wants to please the movie going public because at his core, he just wants you to love him. He will do anything for you, the average movie goer.

With the sixth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise (Fallout) headed our way this weekend, I thought about Tom Cruise’s incredible longevity and asked myself this question: Which action movies from the last 35 years would be better with Tom Cruise? Could we insert him into bad action movies and make them good (yes, definitely, because Tom Cruise essentially doesn’t make bad movies, The Mummy aside) and could we insert him into good action movies and make them better (I think we could)? A number of movies jumped to mind as potential Cruiseian vessels but I think some obvious choices would be changed too much in tone or style by involving Cruise so as to become completely different movies rather than just “better” movies. For example, I tried hard to replace Nic Cage with Tom Cruise in a dozen different movies but Cage, for all of his less than stellar acting chops, is such a singular, shall we say, presence, that removing him would fundamentally change the movie. Would Tom Cruise make Con-Air better? Probably, but it would be completely different movie and possibly not as fun. Likewise, I considered only movies and roles that Cruise, the biggest movie star of all-time (at least in his own mind), would actually take, so no character work or ensembles (see: The Expendables). And finally, I didn’t consider outright atrocious movies because in most cases, the prospective improvement wouldn’t be directly tied to Cruise. Would Tom Cruise in place of Mark Wahlberg make Transformers: The Last Knight a better movie? Of course, but so would a spider monkey throwing feces; that’s not much of a test. With those rules in mind, here’s what I came up with.

HONORABLE MENTION: The Matrix – Keanu Reeves, Thomas Anderson/NeoThe Matrix is a very good movie that is also, in my opinion, very overrated. Some of this is due to its outdated look and some to the fact that the sequels are miserable affairs all around. Perhaps Cruise doesn’t help with either of these issues but I think his intensity, the direct opposite of Reeves’s emotionless zombie routine, works better once Neo ascends and maybe that keeps the sequels afloat? Reeves is DEFINITELY the better Thomas Anderson, though, and the movie has to take on a different tone and possibly aesthetic to match Cruise so this is far from a no-brainer. But I think that I, personally, would be much more willing to re-watch The Matrix and its sequels if it were a Cruise joint.

10. Robin Hood (2010 version) – Russell Crowe, Robin HoodRaise your hand if you completely forgot there was a Ridley Scott-Russell Crowe Robin Hood movie. As we approach the release of yet another Hood iteration (but this one has Jamie Dornan! Hooray!), I’d like us to harken back a few years to one of the most boring adventure films in recent memory. Maybe Cruise doesn’t turn Robin Hood into a smashing success (this was, after all, a horrendous period for Scott) but at the very least he’d try to make the material entertaining which is far more than we can say for Crowe.

9. The Running Man – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ben RichardsI’ll be honest, this has way more to do with just wanting Tom Cruise, the King of the Movie Run, to be in a movie titled The Running Man. It would probably be weird to have Rain Man-era Cruise in this heavy action movie extremely suited for Arnie’s talent, but wouldn’t it be awesome to look back on his career 30 years later and note the presence of The Running Man on Cruise’s IMDb? I think so.

8. 300 – Gerard Butler, King LeonidasThe impetus for this selection is two-fold. One, if you gave Cruise this role and six months to prepare, there is a 100 percent chance he’d come back with a real 12-pack to fully embody (forgive the pun) the character and I want to see that. Two, if we could go back 11 years and keep Butler out of this role, I think there’s a 50-50 shot his career never takes off and we’re not subjected to three unfathomably bad Butler movies ever year.

7. Speed – Keanu Reeves, Jack Traven OR Dennis Hopper, Howard PayneA friend of mine suggested this selection and I like it because really, truly, you could sub Cruise into either lead role and the movie would get better. Cruise versus Hopper pops off the screen far more than Reeves-Hopper ever did, and Reeves versus Cruise would be a hilarious clash of style that I would definitely watch 900 times.

6. Spider-Man – Willem Dafoe, Norman Osborne/The Green GoblinI thought long and hard on how to incorporate Cruise into the MCU. My best idea was to have him step into the shoes of Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange. This would work, I think, but the integration wouldn’t be seamless. So, while the Raimi Spider-Man films are only MCU-adjacent, I’d still jump at the chance to get Cruise into the comic book movie business. I think Cruise plays this role a little less “creepy and insane” but with a harder edge and ultimately, it helps the movie age better than it has in its present form.

5. A Taken-like Franchise – Liam Neeson, Bryan Mills I love Liam Neeson as both a person and an action hero and he did a great job elevating the pulpy material of the first Taken movie to a respectable level. Plus, this was the jumping off point for the second phase of his career and it was well-deserved, so I wouldn’t want to take it away from him (basically the opposite of Gerard Butler in 300). What I really want is for Cruise to helm his own series like this; his own Taken, Equalizer, John Wick, etc. Something simple and filled with over-the-top action and gun play. It seems like it would be fun to watch him in that role. Let’s make this happen.

4. Talladega Nights – Sacha Baron Coen, Jean GirardI admit, I am super stretching the term, “action movie” here, please forgive me. This is nothing against SBC who is actually quite funny in this, one of the more underrated movies from the Will Ferrell heyday. But given Cruise’s comedic success in Tropic Thunder, I very badly want to see him try his hand as a ridiculous French race car driver. It might be a disaster, I DON’T KNOW, I just find myself NEEDING to see that.

3. Any 80’s or early 90’s karate/kung fu-related movieYou have your pick here as one out of every three movies from this era revolved around martial arts. Karate Kid, Bloodsport, American Ninja, Surf Ninjas, Three Ninjas, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… Obviously Cruise would be great in any of these illustrious films. My pick, however, would be the oft-forgotten Chuck Norris jam Sidekicks, wherein a bullied teenager imagines that Chuck Norris is his karate mentor. Of course, Chuck Norris actually knows karate and Tom Cruise does not but wouldn’t it be fun to see Tom Cruise learn karate just so he could star in a cheesy kid’s movie like this? Yes, yes it would.

2. Total Recall – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Douglas Quaid/HauserArnie was like no other before or after him, a man built in a laboratory (almost literally) to star in 80’s action movies. He’s irreplaceable in virtually all of his movies from this time period (including the aforementioned Running Man, I admit). But I will take this belief to my grave: he was out of his depth in Total Recall. This movie needed more of a thinking man’s action star in the lead role and while we’ve never confused Tom Cruise with the great thinkers of our time, he does a much better job of piecing together a mystery than Schwarzenegger ever did. This miscasting was rectified in some ways 12 years later when Cruise did Minority Report but still, the 1990 version of Total Recall is infinitely better with Cruise in the lead, just beginning to stretch his action movie muscles.

1. The Fast SeriesI don’t want Cruise to replace anyone within the Fast and Furious Cinematic Universe as it is perfect and above any potential second guessing I might offer. I just desperately want/need Tom Cruise in this universe. Add him to the mix as a villain in Fast10, have him join up with Hobbs and Shaw in their upcoming spin-off, let him slide in as Brian O’Connor’s older brother hell bent on revenge; I don’t care, just make it happen. Please, I beg of you, make it happen.